A Cold and Broken Hallelujah
by StrawberryBubble
Summary: After two years of being held captive, Dr. Spencer Reid turns up in Chicago, a very different, broken man...along with evidence that the CPD think point to him being behind the real unsub's crimes. And while the team is trying to find a way to prove their friend innocent, the man who hurt him, still free, may just be trying to find a way to get him back...ALL WARNINGS INSIDE.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: NOTE: This is slightly AU; S****pencer was never kidnapped in Season 2.**

**THIS IS A SERIOUSLY HURT!REID FIC, CENTERING AROUND, well, HURT!REID. Please _do not_ read if that's a problem! **

**WARNINGS: Strong language throughout. There will be _adult_ content and themes, such as non-con/rape, child abuse, human trafficking, and PTSD, to name the worst. Nothing will _ever_ be explicitly written, and individual chapter warnings will_ always_ be put when needed, but if the overall subject matter is not your cup of tea, please _do not_ read! :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own Criminal Minds or any of its characters.**

**Reviews/Feedback on what I can do better would be great! Thanks! :)**

_**xxx**_

_"They say when you are missing someone that they are probably feeling the same, but I don't think it's possible for you to miss me as much as I'm missing you right now."_

― Edna St. Vincent Millay

**1.**

August 16th

_I'm so scared. I'm scared, angry, and I'm sad…I'm so sad, Spence. I don't even keep a journal; I don't know what I'm doing. I just can't sleep...just like every other night so far. Maybe I'll just get this all out and feel better. Maybe? But we've been up for what seems like months. Ever since the morning you were just...gone. Taken from us. Randomly. Out of the blue. Unfairly. It's been confirmed that it was an abduction...but we already knew that. We found a fingerprint in...in your blood. Your apartment, god, the blood...not enough that you would've...but you must've been hurt. You...No. No, fuck this. Fuck this. Fuck it all. Fuck everything, THIS WAS A STUPID IDEA! Just come home! Please!_

_Please..._

September 15th

_It's your birthday. You're 25 now. Where are you? We would've made a cake, like always. Garcia always makes the most amazing cakes. But you know that._

September 20th

_Two months. You've been gone two months, and it feels like two hundred years. We're still looking. You know we're never going to give up, right? Not ever. Not until we find you. And we're gonna find you. We are. Not a single one of us believes anything less._

_You're missing a lot already, you know. We had our first case since...well, we had a case last week. A series of (what first appeared to be random) drownings ended with an emotionally compromised twenty year old kid being brought into custody. Turns out, when he was in high school, he was bullied almost everyday (not to mention neglected at home), and at some point, his tormentors almost drowned him in the canal behind the place. Who were the victims? Yep, you guessed it. All 4 (almost 5, but we got there in time!) who had been apart of that incident. Thank Garcia, as always, for the background information._

_Would have been easier with you._

September 21st

_Morgan asked me what I was doing yesterday. I told him I'd started a journal of a sort...of letters to you. Nothing, really. Just something to cope. His expression told me he was interested, even if he didn't say anything else. I think I'm going to leave this on his desk tomorrow morning. Whether he decides to write or not, maybe it'll make him feel better. Not that I've written much, either. It's been hard keeping up with writing about something I don't want to think about. Not you, Spence. I always want to think about you. Always. I mean...you know what I mean._

_God, I miss you. I miss you more than anything._

September 22nd

_I'm sorry Reid, JJ...I can't._

November 30th

_I thought I saw you today. I was more sure of it than I was last time, or the time before that. Or the time before that._

_I didn't really see you today._

December 24th

_No one will be celebrating much of a Christmas this year. Remember when we all went to Garcia's last year for that party she threw? Remember how you got a rash on your forehead from the fabric of the Santa hats, and Morgan teased you about how he thought it looked like a Christmas tree? Did I ever tell you it kind of did? It really kind of did. Oh, and Rossi practically knocking the entire punch bowl on himself? God, he could never wear that shirt again! And of course, him and Garcia cooking, because well, if any of us did it, we'd burn the place down. But point is, it was amazing. Will is just about the pickiest person ever (though he would never admit it) when it comes to food, but clearly even he can recognize a masterpiece of a meal when he sees one!_

_Anyway. Merry Christmas, Reid._

_I wish you'd come back and be our present._

January 2nd

_Happy New year, Pretty Boy. Though it ain't happy._

_-DM_

January 25th

_So we've been recently notified that there's been other kidnappings. One every month and a half or so, since June 21st. No witnesses. All children. One of them is a girl who's only ten. No one is entirely sure if they're related to yours, or really if they're even related to each other. Kids go missing, unfortunately, all the time. And you're so much older than anything of them...why would they want you if they were looking for children? But it does seem to have been in a sort of line...you here, the second a state over, all the way to Illinois where the rest of them have been taken, and so until something steers them away from that conclusion, they're investigating it all as the same unsub. A male, white, forties to mid fifties. Someone who's clearly good around families, who looks non-threatening...but, of course, is._

_The good news is, no one has found any of their bodies._

_So where ARE you, Spence? God, I hope you're okay. It's eating me alive not knowing._

February 15th

_Hey, Kid. Where are you, huh? JJ needs a little charming. Will forgot what yesterday was. You'd get her some flowers, wouldn't you? Roses, no doubt. 'Cause you're like that._

_-DM_

_(Morgan, Will did give me flowers! I mean, like, a couple days ago. It was in advance!)_

_(Oh, you hear that, Reid? In advance. Like being fashionably late, but...romantically early.)_

March 2nd

_Well, Pretty Boy, it's me again. JJ's decided to leave this at the bureau as...I don't know. Therapy, maybe. None of us went very long to the one that was offered. "Let's talk about exactly what you don't want to talk about while I sit here and stare you down." Yeah. Sure. Helpful. Anyway, she left a note on the top of the binder she's putting all of these entries in. Says, 'Dear Reid.' In a way, it's kind of like you're gonna come in tomorrow and see it. But you're not. And that's real upsetting, to say the least._

_-DM_

April 16th

_Everyone misses you. We haven't given up, and we won't._

_(Reid, look, that's Hotch's handwriting. He does have a heart. -DM)_

April 25th

_Come home, genius. It just ain't the same without you._

_-Dave_

June 2nd

_Hey there, Spencer. I've been thinking about writing in this for a while now, since JJ told us what it was, but...I don't know. It's very hard to think about. We all miss you so much; it hasn't been the same...and it won't be until you get back._

_No real leads on any of the kidnappings so far. Lots of new cases, as always, but...we're still focused on the old. They've all been so...well planned out. Honestly, the only scene that left anything short of a brokenhearted family was yours. I wish the fingerprint had led us somewhere. It's almost impossible how good this guy is. How bad, I mean. But how...professional. It's disgusting._

_And even more disgusting is what could be happening...why the kids were taken. But you? Why you? You are, in a lucky sort of way, too old for what most people would go for if this is all about trafficking, which, we hope to God it's not. That seems to be what a lot of the agents on the case think, however. But that can't be right. Anything else. Anything._

_We're all trying, Reid. You never leave our minds. No one has laid a hand on your desk. No one else has been in your apartment, other than to sweep through it all again. When you come back, everything will be the same for you._

_Just hold on, okay? We're going to find you. We love you. So much._

_-Emily_

July 4th

_Come back, sweetness. The fireworks could never be as intense as the hurt in my heart._

_Your very favorite computer whiz,_  
><em>Penelope<em>

July 20th

_Well, here we are. The twentieth. One year later. We've survived an entire year without you. Barely. I can't believe it's been this long already—I can't believe it's only been this long. It feels like it's been thirty years. Some days are easier than others; and then some...well, some days are harder. Some almost too hard. God, I miss you. We all do, I mean. It's not just me. It's taken this long to even get back to our normal selves...not that we're really back, but...you know. Occasionally, we can have a lightheaded conversation about something. Usually it's while the adrenaline is still pumping right after a successful case. Other times we can't, and don't for days. This job is a constant reminder, one we can't escape. I still haven't slept a full night through. Maybe none of us have._

_I mentioned your name yesterday. It's the first time out of the blue that I can remember any of us doing it. We just finished up a case in Atlanta—an executive was murdered, his daughter kidnapped. Don't worry, she's okay. We found her just in time, even though it was pretty touch-and-go for a while. But her room—wow, Spence, you should've seen it. Star Trek posters everywhere; a geek's paradise. That's what I said, on the plane back. Only I said "Spence's paradise" instead. Simple slip of the tongue; not hard when you're always on our mind. But there was this moment where…no one got that look, that look, that…awful look, when we start feeling that emptiness inside again, the one that sucks all the air out of our lungs and stops our hearts for a minute. Some of them almost smiled. I smiled. I smiled because I was thinking about your room as a kid. What did it look like, huh? Like hers? Or was it just a ton of bookshelves covering every inch of the wall, filled up with physiology and technology textbooks in, what, Latin? Probably a mix of both, right? I would ask you if you were here._

_But you're not. You're still not here, so get your stupid fucking self back so I can ask you that stupid fucking question, okay? Please? Spence, please. Please come back. Oh god, I'm getting tears all over the page again. Sorry._

_Love,  
>JJ<em>

August 14th

_Well, this thing was just looking like it needed a little loving over in its spot by the coffee machine. Besides, all I've got is paperwork to file, so I thought hey, I haven't written in a long while. I also haven't slept, so bare with me. There will probably be some shit that don't make sense._

_It's been a pretty boring few months, though, honestly. Slow. Very slow. I saw JJ covered the basics of our last big case—that sure was something. The less details, the better. Don't need more depressing shit, right Kid?_

_Oh who am I kidding, every one of these pages is depressing shit. We've almost filled an entire binder in one year, all depressing shit! A few pages (or more than a few, maybe) never made in it in here. I think sometimes we say things we end up wishing we hadn't. __Only unlike in real life, we can take it back before you hear it. Other reasons, too, maybe. Maybe we wrote too much and didn't feel like adding a novel to take up space. Either way, I'm pretty sure no one threw them out, though. I didn't._

_But that's how you know we care__. I think it's pretty great that all of us have written, even Hotch. Yeah, even Hotch! You heard me. I think I added a note to it. I think he thinks that, because he didn't sign it, he's fooling us. You're gonna have to break the news to him._

_Oh, speak of the devil. He's waving us all to come into the conference room. I'm sure JJ will fill you in when we get back._

_Talk to you again soon, Pretty Boy.  
>-DM<em>

September 15th

_Happy 26th Birthday, Spencer._

_Love,  
>all of us.<em>

January 1st

_Happy New Year, Reid. We miss you. Miss you a lot. Of course, just like before, it's not very happy without you._

_Also—_

_(Garcia, I swear to God, I knew you were gonna do something like that. Don't make me hurt you, baby girl.)_

_Back in pen so our hungover friend Derek can't erase it, as I, too, knew he was going to do that, and, as I was saying, you should've seen him last night. We all went out for a drink, you know, as we do. He went for drinkS. He also proceeded to join karaoke night. He might try to tell you he didn't._

_Ohhhh, but I filmed it._

_In HD._

_Love,  
>Penelope<em>

_(Reid, if she ever tries to show you that video, burn it! I'm serious! Don't watch it!)_

_(Watch it, Reid. He sang Madonna. –Dave)_

_(Reid, get your ass back here, I need a right-hand man for when I take my revenge.)_

March 19th

_Cases are all going well. There have been a few we could've solved much quicker had you been here._

_There have been a lot, actually. It's been hard. It's not getting any easier. I don't think anyone expects it to, however._

_-Hotch_

April 1st

_Spence, guess what? I'm pregnant! Isn't it great? Will and I are hoping for a little boy. No names in mind yet, it's only been a month (hey, I didn't tell anyone else until now either; we were being thoroughly sure!) but we should probably get on that, huh? I think Alexander is a nice name. That was my grandfather's name. But who knows?_

_Maybe you'll be back before s/he's due on November 4th. I hope you are. I hope you're back tomorrow. I was hoping you would be back last week...I was hoping you would be back an hour after you were gone._

_Love,  
>JJ<em>

_P.S. I just realized what the date was; Morgan thought I was kidding! But I'm not. It's one of the only good things that have happened so far..._

April 8th

_Oh, Reid. There's a new exhibit at the science museum, and it's all about the solar system. It's got the planets hanging from the ceiling and everything. Aaron brought Jack to it; they got pictures, a few specifically for you of the overall thing. You told us how much you liked astronomy and the likes once. Of course, you like it all, don't you? Yeah. I'm sure there'll be something else there when you come back though._

_-Dave_

April 15th

_Reid, I'm serious, get your ass back. This isn't okay anymore. Not that it ever was, but..._

_I miss you so much. I cried myself to sleep last night for the first time in a while. I thought I was starting to be a little bit better, a little bit okay. But I'm not._

_I love you, Spencer. Please be okay._

_Love,  
>JJ<em>

May 1st

_They found the body of one of the abducted children. We're scared to death, Reid._

_JJ_

July 20th

_Two years now. That's too long. Somehow, it's getting harder to let you cross our minds. It hurts. So much. And it hurts even more not knowing when this torment will end, for any of us...for you._

_Missing you more every day,  
><em>_-Emily_

_**xxx**_

August 17th  
>5:03am<span>

_Ring. Ring._

"Mm...Morgan, there had better be a reason you're calling me this early, otherwise you're gonna get a sneak preview of the hormonal rage Will's been dealing with. And, trust me, that is _not _something you want."

"JJ..."

"What is it?"

"They found him. He's alive."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Wow, this got such a positive response, I'm so glad! Although I do always reply to reviews individually, thank you all for taking the time to do so, and also favorite/story alert it! I hope you continue to give me feedback, it's always lovely to see. :)**

**And that being said, I hope you enjoy the next chapter here!**

**_xxx_**

_"It seems the more we know, the less we believe."_

— J.S.B. Morse

**2.**

_"They found him. He's alive."_

When JJ heard those words, the same words she'd been praying every night for over two years for, she'd just about fainted. Her stomach dropped through the floor, she literally forgot how to breathe, and she couldn't say anything for a good fifteen seconds, even as Will questioned her worriedly. Finally, she managed to choke out, "Spence?" because she could not possibly handle any further disappointment. Maybe she didn't even want to know the answer.

To her relief, Morgan said, "Yes. Reid. He's in Chicago."

Fucking _Chicago, _of all places. "What—how—I don't under—"

"I know, I know. Meet us at the jet, okay? We leave in thirty."

JJ simply dropped the phone back in its place and then stared at Will, open-mouthed. He'd heard the name she had mentioned, and he said, "Is it him?"

"I...I don't know," she admitted, because after so long...how could she be certain? "I have to go."

"Of course..." He got up as she did, taking her arm to slow her down for a moment. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No, no." she said quickly. "We're gonna come back as soon as we can."

"Okay. Take as much time as you need." He pulled her into a kiss. "I love you. Be careful, you hear?"

JJ nodded, still numb, and then exited the room. Will sat down on the side of the bed and ran a hand through his hair, hearing JJ fumbling in the hall to find her go-bag, and then he sent a plea to whatever higher power there was that she would not be letdown by the trip.

She, along with the rest of the team, were already in the air when the sun began to rise, and for the most part it was a silent flight. A few times, one of them would vaguely look as if they wanted to speak, although they never did. Morgan fiddled with his MP3 player, never turning it on. Garcia nervously twisted one of her bracelets, jumping when the string broke and the beads clattered to the floor, not bothering to pick them up, simply staring down at them as if they were some foreign objects she had never seen before. Rossi, Hotch, and Prentiss sat at the table they usually played cards on, but now they were simply staring at it, not knowing where else to put their eyes. And JJ stared hazily out the window, hardly blinking, as if in a dream; and she wasn't so sure she wasn't.

"When we land," Hotch finally said, just as solemn as ever, about twenty minutes before they arrived, "We're going to the main Chicago PD precinct." He paused, pursing his lips. "Reid is being held there...for interrogation."

"Wait a minute, what?" Emily whipped her head towards him, dumbfounded. "On what charge?"

"Kidnapping." Rossi was the one who answered, not meeting any of their eyes.

"You're kidding me, right?" Morgan tossed his music player onto the empty seat next to him and threw his hands up. "C'mon. On what proof?"

Hotch shook his head once. "On the proof that he was found with seven of the sixteen children who've gone missing since he disappeared."

"Since he was _abducted,_" JJ corrected, angrily. "How the hell do they think he—"

"They're not entirely sure he _was _abducted," said Rossi, slowly. "They sent officers out to review the crime scene again, but I doubt they'll find anything to convince themselves otherwise. They've got a...well, the head of the case is...tough, to put it nicely."

Garcia looked absolutely heartbroken. "After everything he's already been through..."

"And another thing," Rossi continued, seeming hesitant. "From what we understand...he isn't talking."

"Well, what the hell does that mean?" JJ demanded, sitting up straight.

"What it means," Hotch replied, "is that he isn't defending himself. He's refusing to cooperate with the interrogation, which, to say the least, is not helping his case."

"There shouldn't be one," JJ grumbled, and then said it again, much louder, once they'd arrived at the precinct, greeted by a short, fit man who never got a single word out.

"This is ridiculous!"

"What are you doin', man? He's been through enough!"

"This has to be illegal!"

"Hey." Hotch brought his team to silence with one sternly spoken word, and then hastily introduced them all.

"Detective Brown," the man finally said, looking just a bit pissed off, though his voice remained steady and did not give anything away. "Main investigator for this case."

"Case." Prentiss repeated quietly, venomously, and Hotch cleared his throat. "Yes. Dr. Spencer Reid. He's part of our team."

"That's what they told me. That's why you were called."

"That's our _friend_," Garcia said, "who's been missing for two years, who is innocent, and...who we would really appreciate being able to see." Her tone, which had started out rough and assertive, trailed off into what was (embarrassingly) almost a beg.

"If you wouldn't mind," Rossi added, in a way that made it sound like anything but a suggestion.

Brown exhaled sharply through his nose, obviously displeased to have to deal with them. "He's in Holding Room Four. I'll bring you to—"

JJ interrupted him with a snappy, "We've got it," and so he stepped aside to allow them passage. Then, he turned to watch them go, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

When they saw Spencer, at long last—and it really was him, to their disbelief—through the door's small window, sitting in the chair with his arms around himself like he was cold, they paused, startled. He was so...thin, impossibly more so than he had been. He was wearing a dirty long sleeved shirt, pants with holes at the knees, and he seemed sick, tired, and more than anything afraid...he even seemed to be shaking slightly. Spencer had always been a nervous kid, but he had never looked like this; it was frightening.

"Wait, wait." Emily said suddenly, holding her hand up. "What if...?"

"It's only been two years," Morgan said, because he needed to believe it, and maybe if he said it aloud, he would. "He's gonna remember."

"I think she's talking about the...the stress of us all going in at once," Rossi replied, and Hotch agreed with a nod.

"Can...maybe I should go in," JJ murmured, and then, without waiting for a response, she opened the door, very slowly.

Reid lowered his head even more, shaking it, and JJ realized he thought she was the detective, here to harass him further. "Spence?" she said softly, carefully, and after a second of hesitation, Reid looked up, his eyes widening after a moment or two of staring. Recognition visibly clicked, and his mouth dropped open.

"Hey." JJ smiled, coming over to sit beside him on the table. She wanted so badly to hug him, tightly, until he was okay again, but when she reached out to touch his hair, matted and now shoulder-length, he immediately, instinctively flinched away. He leaned back, hands grasping the side of the table, but he was still staring at her, and JJ was hoping to see the old Reid somewhere in his darkened eyes.

She didn't.

"I'm sorry...it's just...it's so good to see you," she said, awkwardly. "Is it okay if the others come in?"

Reid nodded; his knuckles had turned white from how tight his grip was. She couldn't quite read his expression, though he certainly wasn't in opposition. She turned her head towards the door and nodded, and when it opened, revealing Garcia first and then the rest behind her, Reid jerked his attention over to them as if he hadn't just been told they were coming in. JJ felt sick; he was _terrified_.

"Reid..." Garcia breathed out. "Hey..."

Looking more than a little intimidated as they all entered, he shrank back, which they assumed meant he'd decided they shouldn't get any closer. They stopped, individually greeting him, each time hoping that he'd respond. Instead, in an action that was better than that, Reid's mouth twitched up, and then he was smiling—a very, very small and sad one, but a smile all the same. JJ grinned hugely, forgetting what had happened moments before in her overwhelming giddiness, putting her hand on his shoulder. He yelped and scooted the chair back, breathing hard, protectively putting his arms around himself again.

"Spencer, Spence, I'm so sorry!" she babbled, trying to make it right and yet not sure she could. She jumped off the table and backed up, giving him his space. "It's okay, I'm sorry. I won't do it again. I'm sorry."

Reid nodded vigorously, agreeing physically but definitely not mentally; he stared off to the side, rocking a bit, his fists clenched in his shirt.

"He hasn't said a word since we found him," Brown's voice came from behind the group, and they parted so he could get through. Reid shuddered violently at his voice, unnoticed by the rest.

"And where was that exactly?" Prentiss asked, accusingly, and Brown shrugged. "A call came in around three AM, about the sound of a child crying, so we checked it out and found them under the local park's pavilion. He wouldn't let any of us near the children, let alone himself. He had to be sedated before they could even get him in the ambulance."

"Were the children injured?"

"Bruises, scars, but nothing too bad or recent."

"And you still think he's your guy?"

Brown held up the case file. "There are children still missing. He's the only one we have who knows where they are. We're getting the kids in after a day or two to recover."

"And he doesn't need that?" JJ demanded, pointing to Reid, who was watching them absentmindedly, eyes glassy, almost looking through them.

Brown forced out a smile. "If you don't mind, agents..."

"We do!" Garcia began, irritated, but Hotch interrupted her. "We're not leaving the precinct."

"Wouldn't have it any other way. We'll find you someplace you can stay...out of the way."

JJ shot the man a nasty look, but after a moment he'd gotten his wish of being alone with his suspect again, and he closed the door behind them.

"Now," he said, sitting down and clasping his hands together over the folder. Reid nervously chewed on his lip, eyes cast down, weary.

"Where did we leave off?"


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: T****HANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT! I appreciate it more than you could know :)**

_**xxx**_

_"To communicate through silence is a link between the thoughts of man."_

— Marcel Marceau

**3.**

"Everything about this place is awful. Even the coffee."

Morgan lifted his hand in a gesture of agreement towards Prentiss as she placed her mug back onto the desk, her features twisted up in disgust. They'd been given a conference room to stay in for now (certainly out of the way; it was almost in the back of the place) in which they had already been discussing how they would prove Reid's innocence. Garcia had been tapping away at her laptop, finding everything she could about the kidnappings, Morgan watching over her shoulder. Hotch, who had never been one for pacing, was doing just that by the window, a hand on his chin, in thought.

"They can't seriously believe he took all these kids," Morgan said, shaking his head, and JJ scoffed. "Even if they don't, they're not letting him go until he tells them where the others are."

"So...why hasn't he?"

Rossi rubbed at his beard and squinted. "He may not be able to."

"Trauma, PTSD, maybe." Prentiss agreed. "Selective mutism? Progressive, even?"

"I thought that only affected children," Morgan said, glancing up at last, and she shook her head, crossing her legs as she sat. "It's rare in adults, but not impossible. Especially after two years of...Well, two years is a long time, and a lot could have happened to cause it."

"If that's true," Hotch spoke up, stilling himself, placing his hands on the table and leaning on it, "then it's completely up to this team to speak for him. We need to build a stronger case than they have, and quickly."

"Shouldn't be too hard," Morgan took a deep breath. "We can try to get something from him...if not, then maybe from the kids comin' in."

Hotch nodded. "Good. Morgan, I want you to go in after Detective Brown is done. Try to get through the communication barrier somehow. The rest of us need to be in here, casing each of the kidnappings as if they just happened. We've got even less time than we usually would to do this. Let's get to work."

**_xxx_**

Brown was in the room an hour and forty minutes before at last he called it quits. Reid relaxed, just a bit, when he was left alone, because of course, alone was safer. He licked at his chapped lips and fidgeted uncomfortably. He needed a break, and needed water even more. No one had offered him either. He couldn't ask—no, he was never allowed to do that. He was either rewarded with what he needed, or he went without whatever it was. He had to be good; that was hard when he was being asked impossible things. He couldn't talk; he wasn't supposed to. He wondered if he still knew how, if his voice still worked for more than the limited vocabulary he'd used over the past years. He'd practically forgotten what it sounded like. But he could write—he knew that. That's how he had communicated with the kids. But then...no one had offered him a pen, either.

The door opened again a minute or two later, and Morgan entered. Reid watched him warily, wondering if he was here to bombard him with questions, too.

_Morgan. Derek Morgan. _He liked Morgan. Yes, he remembered that. He liked them all. They were nice; they were his family. They wouldn't hurt him. They wouldn't...right?

"It's great to see you, Kid." Morgan said after a long pause, sitting across from him. He smiled, probably hoping Reid would do the same, but the younger only glanced downwards again. "We're real glad you're okay."

_Am I okay?_

Morgan sighed. "What happened to you?" he asked, not really expecting a response. "Are you not talking because you're...afraid of something? Of someone?"

Reid didn't know what to do. He could have confirmed or denied the statement with his head, but he didn't. That would only prompt more questions, more questions he didn't want to answer. All he really wanted to do was sleep...His mind was too foggy to be of much help, thanks to the drugs he'd been given last night. The effects lingered, seeming to be doing anything but wearing off as they were supposed to. He wasn't afraid, anyway; he was _terrified_. And even that seemed too weak a word to describe what he was feeling, what he had been feeling for years, what he didn't believe he would ever _stop _feeling.

"If I got you a pen," Morgan began, hesitantly, "would you be able to...you know...write to me?"

Reid met his gaze for a minute, and he didn't even need to nod before Morgan's eyes lit up. "Yeah? Hold—hold on." He stood and disappeared, returning a second later with a pad of paper and a pen. He placed them in front of Reid, who didn't move for a very long time. Morgan had started wondering if he'd suspected wrong when finally Reid took the utensil between shaking fingers and began to write.

_Help me._

Morgan felt his heart stop. "We're trying, Kid, we are. But it would help if you defended yourself, too. Brown is really convinced you did it."

_I didn't._

"I know. We all know. And we're gonna do everything we can to prove it."

_I'm sorry._

"For what?"

_Everything else._

A little unnerved at the statement, Morgan stammered, "E-everything else?"

Reid stared at the paper for a while, and then replied with, _Water, please?_

"Yeah, yeah, sure. I'll get you some water."

Reid was relieved that the first request he'd dared to make was accepted, but uncertainty kept him from asking another. _Shut up! _he heard, every time he thought about opening his mouth, or asking anything of anyone. _Shut up! Don't ask! Shut up! Don't speak!_

Derek seemed to sense his inner turmoil, and so he questioned, "Are you hungry? Hell, you must be. Do you want something?"

Reid nodded, fidgeting with his hands under the table.

"...Anything else?"

The younger gave a small nod, and it really didn't take a professional to figure out where the one-sided conversation was going. "Bathroom?"

Again, Reid non-verbally agreed, and so Morgan waved towards the door. "Okay. C'mon."

Unfortunately, to get to said destination, they had to walk past half the precinct, who intently watched them the whole way. Their confused yet suspicious expressions struck Reid harder than any blow could, and the moment he ducked into the tiny room, he locked it and began to cry. Morgan heard him gasp in a pained breath as he shut the door, and he winced. He felt suddenly, almost, as if he didn't want to know what Reid had been through. No matter how much he'd seen in his years of being an agent, this he simply didn't know if he could handle.

He stopped Emily as she was walking past, probably to get something that tasted better than the coffee, and smiled a bit. "I got him to talk."

"Really?"

"Well, write. A little. Maybe more once he's feeling better. Speaking of," he pointed at the bathroom, "can you take him back when he's done while I go get him something to eat?"

"Of course," Prentiss nodded at him, and then leaned up against the wall. When Reid had been in there for almost fifteen minutes, something Prentiss wrote off as him getting himself together (but was beginning to wonder if she should be concerned), she heard Brown storming down the hall, demanding to know where his suspect was. His otherwise pale face was flushed considerably, and in his clenched fist he held a crumpled piece of paper. She rolled her eyes and held her hand out to get his attention. "Over here."

The detective came over and furiously began pounding on the door. "Time to get out!"

"Hey, please, come on, really?" she began, exasperated, and Brown turned to her, pissed, showing her the paper that Reid had written on. "He's been holding out on me, Agent."

"Listen, he's exhausted, he's been through more than you can imagine, and—"

"Are you sure? Was he a victim? Or an accomplice?"

Reid carefully opened the door, peering out fearfully at the man, his eyes red and swollen, and she raised her eyebrows. "Look at him! Does he really look like a criminal to you?"

"Everyone looks like a criminal to me," the man growled. He grabbed Reid's wrist, inciting a shrill shriek from him as he struggled to pull away, and then Brown shoved him face-first against the wall in order to handcuff him. The younger was crying again, openly, and Emily was utterly fuming. "What the hell are you doing?"

Brown dragged him back to his feet and shrugged. "He was trying to escape." He sneered at her. "This is not your case, nor is it your investigation. You have no reason to be here."

"That's my _friend!_"

"And my number one suspect. If you'll excuse me."

Emily had no choice but to step out of the way, appalled with this man's behavior.

"Move. Stop crying." Brown demanded, and Reid, who'd already quieted himself, instantly, submissively, obeyed. And while the detective was fastening his left hand to the hook under the table back in the tiny room, Reid was trembling, dreading what would come next. They were alone, Reid was now restrained—he couldn't fight. Not that he was supposed to do that anyway. He was meant to be controlled, and if this man would be next to do so, then it was his fault for being so problematic. It always was. This was his prize for surviving. This was what he was, now, what he would be for the rest of his life.

To his relief, however, Brown merely sat back down and began to stare at him. "You know, this makes me even more convinced. You've been explicitly refusing to cooperate, and—what's that face? Why do you look so shocked?" He practically threw the paper and pen at him, and Reid let out a whimper that had the detective rolling his eyes for the umpteenth time. "Write. Answer. Now."

Hesitantly, Reid did so. _I'm innocent._

"Oh! _Are_ you now?"

_Yes._

"Why the hell haven't you said anything until now?"

_You didn't give me a pen._

Brown actually twitched. "That's what words are for, boy."

Reid flinched, recovering quickly. _I'm sorry. I don't know anything._

"Yes, you do. Spending two years with someone, you learn a lot about them."

_No._

"Yes! Listen, I'm not falling for this bullshit anymore. I'll keep you here for a week if I have to, and you'll stay right there, handcuffed, until you give me what I want. Are you comfortable? You don't look like you are."

Reid paused for a moment, and then; _Where are the kids I was with?  
><em>

"Let's talk about you."

_Please._

"Really? Please? Please what?"

_Please, sir._

Brown frowned at the paper; that hadn't been what he'd meant, but he assumed the other was asking about the children's conditions, and so he huffed out a breath of annoyance and answered, only because he wanted to get it over with. "They're safe. Back with their families, where they belong. Where they _all_ belong." He gave Reid a once-over. "You care a lot about them?"

_Yes._

"Did you look after them?"

_Yes._

"So you were a partner?"

_No!_

"Another hostage?"

The younger nodded, very slowly, and the detective rubbed at his face. "There are still children missing. Eight, to be exact. In the last two years, sixteen children were taken. Did you help in any of those abductions?"

Reid put the pen down and didn't answer.

"Did you, or did you not, assist this man in abducting them? A simple question, really, with a simple answer."

Reid didn't reply, didn't even seem to be listening, his mind clearly somewhere else, and so, with a grunt, Brown opened the file and started writing. Reid snapped back to himself and sloppily, hurriedly scribbled down, _No, I didn't!__  
><em>

"Mm." Brown wouldn't even look; he clearly couldn't care less about some half-assed protest. Reid shoved the paper into the other's line of sight, underlining his words, and Brown stood. "I'm going to bring you a confession sheet, which you are going to sign. Understand?"

Enraged, both by the man and his own inability to speak, Reid threw the pen onto the table as hard as he could. It bounced off, nearly hitting the detective, and Brown whipped around. "Did you really just throw that at me?"

Reid held his hand out and shook his head, desperately. Why, why, _why _had he done that? He didn't want to be hurt anymore, so why the hell did he keep taking chances by doing shit like that? He was going to be punished now, for sure, and he was completely to blame, as always._Sorry! _his lips formed the word but no sound came out. Brown took a single, jerky step forward, and Reid moaned, curling himself up against the table, preparing himself for the blows...that never came. He heard footsteps, dared to look up—

"Just getting my pen back," Brown said, but in all honesty he had known exactly what he was doing. Reid struggled to slow his breaths as the man left right as Derek was coming back in, scowling. "You okay, Kid?" he asked once they were alone. "Emily told me what happened. The guy's a real charmer, huh?"

Reid shook his head, and then tilted it at the brown bag the other agent was holding, because it smelt like heaven and he really, _really _wanted it. Morgan managed a smile and handed it over, along with the water he'd previously asked for, all of which Reid gratefully took and downed in record time.

"Slow down there," Morgan laughed softly, "You don't want to choke."

Reid didn't seem to care, however, and once he was done, he looked at Morgan and smiled, almost looking like himself again, yet still somehow, understandably, off. It was amazing progress from the last time Morgan had seem him though, and he would take anything at this point. The younger did a very small writing motion with his hand, and when Derek handed him the pen he'd kept in his pocket, Reid wrote a thanks along with something else that broke the other's heart.

_I'd never thought I'd see you all again._

"Neither did we," he replied, solemnly, and the fact that he couldn't affectionately ruffle the kid's hair like he always had hurt just as much as anything. He wondered if he would ever be able to do that again, or if any of them would be able to show their love for him in general again...if he had been shown any at all in the past two years. "Neither did we."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thank you all for your support! Virtual hugs and cookies (or muffins, if you prefer) all around. Hope this next chapter is enjoyed as much as the others! Reviews are always super duper appreciated :)**

_**xxx**_

_"The problem with surviving was that you ended up with the ghosts of everyone you'd ever left behind riding on your shoulders."_

― Paolo Bacigalupi**  
><strong>

**4.**

Morgan had talked a lot about the past two years in the hour he'd remained in the room, about how much they had searched, how they had never given up, and how they'd always had a hope that he was still older agent had also mentioned how Spencer's mother had been just as sick with worry as the rest of them, probably even more so, and that they had already notified her about him being found alive. Reid seemed...uncomfortable with that subject, to say the least, and to Morgan's surprise, he shook his head when asked if he would want to visit her after this all was over. And it wasn't that Reid didn't want to see her―he did, more than anything. He had missed her just as much as any of the rest of them.

But she would not want to see him, especially not like this, not after what he'd done, what he had become, what he had seen...He was dirty now, inside and out, and his mother would no longer want him once the truth came out. And the truth would come out; it always did. It was only a matter of time before she knew, before the rest of the team knew. They wouldn't want to protect him then; they wouldn't want anything to do with him. He would be better off back with...back where he had been for the last twenty-four, almost twenty-five months.

Clearly only distressing Reid after a while, Morgan chose to leave as Reid's eyes started drooping, and it took only minutes before he put his head down on his arm and closed his eyes totally, hiding his tears.

"Poor thing's exhausted," Garcia said as they watched through the other side of the glass. She sighed after a moment and rubbed her face while Rossi held back a yawn.

"We all are," Hotch said, and he glanced at his watch. "It's late. We should all try to get some rest back at the hotel."

"I'm staying," JJ immediately replied, firmly, and Prentiss touched her shoulder. "You need sleep, too, you know."

"Go ahead." JJ nodded at them. "I'll catch up."

"Alright." Hotch turned around and looked at the group. "We meet back here at eight. I talked with the sheriff; the first child is coming in in the morning.

They all agreed, said goodnight to JJ, and then she was alone. She clasped her hands over her belly, smiling as she felt her baby kick; just a few more months and she would finally be able to greet the he or she that she was already so very in love with...the he or she that she still, aggravatingly enough, did not have a name for. Maybe she just hadn't thought of the right one, the one that would just click and stay with her until it got the chance to be the first thing this baby would have all their own. She suddenly missed Will terribly, and so she called to update him, both on the team and on Reid.

"I'm glad he's okay," Will said after she had filled him in. "But...are you?"

JJ licked her dry lips and hummed. "I will be when we get him out of here. He's handcuffed to a table, for God's sake."

"I'm sorry. You sure you don't want me there? Moral support and all, you know."

"I might take you up on that."

"You sound awfully tired. You're going to sleep soon, right?" A pause. "Jen..."

"Yeah. Yes. I am. I mean, I will."

"Can you do anything right now?"

"What?"

"With Spencer. Can you do anything else to help him right now?"

JJ let out a long breath, and as much as it pained her to say it, she reluctantly replied, "No."

"Then let yourself be rested for when you can, okay? Please? For the baby."

She chuckled. "Oh, I see. It's all about the baby."

"Both of my babies," Will said, smile audible, and JJ made a _tsk-tsk_ sound with her tongue. "Yeah, yeah. Alright. I'm gonna head off to the hotel, then. Goodnight. I love you."

"Goodnight. I love you, too."

She hauled herself to her feet, whispered, "Goodnight, Spence," and then grabbed her coat and headed out the door.

_**xxx**_

_"I'll fucking teach you to stop talking back to me, you little shit!"  
><em>

_"Please, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"_

_"Not yet you're not. Get your ass over here—"_

_Reid cried out when he was grabbed by his hair and dragged along to the other side of the room. He was shoved against the side of the dresser, and he heard the belt crack through the air mere seconds before it made contact with his bare back, still in agony from the last time...and the time before that. "No! Stop! I'm sorry!"_

_"One more word and I'll kill you, you hear? And them! Shut up! This is your fault! Stop crying! Stop fucking crying!"_

Reid startled awake, screaming, and fell out of the chair, striking his chin on the side of the table and biting his tongue as he did so. He cried out again, clutching his jaw with his free hand, tasting blood and barely able to keep from letting the tears constantly behind his eyes begin to fall again. The door burst open as two officers entered, demanding to know what had just happened. Reid only whimpered, pain clouding his consciousness to the point where he could hardly see, and then he shrieked again when hands were suddenly pulling at him, shaking so hard he was almost convulsing.

"Jesus, kid—" The officer who'd been trying to get him up immediately released him, noting the drops of blood on the floor before turning to the second man. "Call an ambulance!"

"No, don't." Detective Brown blocked the doorway and held up a small, clear bottle with a very light colored liquid inside, along with a small syringe. "It's just a panic attack. He had one at the hospital. They gave us this in case he had another."

"I think he hit his head," the second said, frowning, and Brown rolled his eyes, fixing up the dose. Then, kneeling beside Reid, he injected it quickly into his shoulder before he could try to jerk away and then stood. "He'll be fine. I need you two outside with the others, to protect the Grosse family from the press and whoever the hell else is out there. They should be here any minute."

The officers nodded and then left, and Brown turned his attention back to Reid, who was still trembling but beginning to catch his breath now. He was holding his chin, and a line of blood trickled out of his mouth; Brown concluded what had happened, and that it would most likely simply leave a nasty bruise. He was favoring his wrist, however, the one that was cuffed to the table, and Brown could see it was bruising, though he was far from letting him go, and so he decided to pretend he had never noticed it at all. "Breathe, Dr. Reid," he said quietly, and Reid moaned. He tugged gently on the metal keeping him from laying down, and then finally settled for maneuvering himself into a better position before weakly leaning back against the leg of the table, his eyes closed. It didn't knock him out, but he surely didn't have the strength to panic any further, nor the will.

"The first family is coming in. William Grosse is the child." Brown said after a moment, once Reid's panting had evened out and he was positive the younger could hear him. "He's requested to see you."

Reid blinked up at him wearily and nodded, and his mouth formed the word _please_.

"After we've finished questioning him." he added, and then left. Reid moaned again; his limbs weren't responding like they should have been and it was pissing him off. His arm flopped out in front of him, of absolutely no help, and though somehow he believed being back in the chair would have been more comfortable, he really didn't care enough to try. He felt a bit like he had..._that_ day. The day he'd been taken. God, he hadn't thought about that in ages. He'd been sitting on his couch...reading, probably, as if he ever did anything then someone he had never heard had slapped a hand over his mouth from behind and painfully shoved a needle into the side of his neck. He'd ripped it out after just a second or two, but he was already dizzy before he even stood up, staggering about in an attempt to turn around. There had been someone there...just a blurry, darkened shadow at that point. And they were just..._watching_ him, apparently just waiting until he was simply dead-weight to make a move.

He'd stayed on his feet for another good minute, angry because he knew he'd locked his door and he was wondering how the fuck someone could have gotten in, stumbling to reach his cell phone. He'd gotten it in his hands, straining to remember somebody's_—anybody's_—number, when the figure struck his arm, knocking his lifeline out of his grip. He fought, then, desperate, taking whoever it was to the floor with him. They had hit the table on the way down, and the position he'd fallen in caused him to hit his arm on the side of it, giving him a good sized gash that he cried out at. There were hands over his mouth again, and he cursed himself for not screaming sooner. He kicked out, trying to reach for his cell, he'd been so close, and then...and then...

And then Reid couldn't remember anything else until he had come to in the trunk of a moving car, bound tightly and gagged, too weak to do anything even if he'd been free. He'd found himself mumbling for his friends, for his mother, like any of them could help him now, and then suddenly he'd been waking back up, in what looked like a basement or cellar, hanging from a chain connected somewhere above him by his wrists, his feet only just touching the floor enough for him to ground himself and not swing about. His arm ached terribly, but as far as he could tell, someone had bandaged it. So whoever this was didn't want him dead...at least not yet.

Unfortunately, that hadn't been at all as comforting as he wanted it to be.

It might've been hours later, or maybe a day (it was hard to keep track when he kept drifting in and out of consciousness) before someone unlocked the door up the stairs to his right and made their way down. Reid had thought about pretending to be asleep to avoid confrontation, but instead watched in horror and as a woman—smaller than him, even!—came into view, a child who he hoped was simply unconscious in her arms. He now saw that there were beds in front of him, against the other wall, previously lost in the darkness to his eyes, as she set him down upon one and covered him with a blanket. There was the sound of metal clanking against metal as she'd fastened something around his ankle, and then she'd turned around and walked over to Reid, proceeding to stroke a hand down his face and murmur, "Very good indeed."

"What's going on?" Reid had quietly tried to talk to her, but she was not interested in conversation, and began to hum a tune as she went back up the stairs.

Reid had begun to struggle then, rattling the chains loudly as he fought to free himself. "Wait! Come back! What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on?!"

The door had shut, the lock had clicked, and for some reason it was only then that he had realized how much trouble he was in. If only he'd found some way to get out, if only he'd avoided the coming years, if only, if only, _if only_...

If only the one responsible was dead, not still somewhere out there. If only Reid didn't fear for his and the other survivors lives with every breath he took, with every breath he didn't deserve to have.

If only he'd managed to save them all...

**_xxx_**

Outside the precinct, it took ten minutes to clear the group of cameras, news reporters, and the like enough that the black car could pull up, the Grosse family could get out, and then proceed inside without all the equipment in their faces...at least, for the most part. Damn media. Every other officer had been standing by the door to allow them and no one else in, and then Detective Brown greeted them, proudly declaring that he was lead on the case.

"Thank you," Caroline Grosse gave him a tearful smile. "Thank you." She took her husband, Mark, by the arm and held her son's hand.

"Of course. If you could come this way..."

"I want to see Spencer." William said, firmly, and Brown clenched his teeth, something he hoped went unnoticed.

"Sweetie," Caroline murmured, petting his hair, "we—"

"I want to see him!" William repeated, a bit more forcefully, and then Brown managed a smile. "It's okay. Come on, then."

William followed him quickly and quietly, and Brown glanced back at him once or twice. He hadn't jumped at his mother's touch (although he also hadn't seemed all too pleased with her calling him sweetie), he was speaking perfectly fine, and he looked healthy. Maybe they would be able to get somewhere with him...

Brown unlocked the room, opened it, and gestured William inside. Reid looked up, slowly, over the chair, and then his eyes went wide and he straightened up as best he could. William gave a huge smile, went over, and—to the detective's surprise—hugged him. Reid still flinched, but he put his arms around the boy anyway, allowing him to bury his head into the older's neck.

"I was real worried about you," William mumbled, and Reid nodded in agreement. He was still rigid, but he did seem to find comfort in the contact. Brown turned away, flipping through his file as something professional-looking to do, and then his eyes settled on the last paper, reading it for the third time. It was something he hadn't given to anyone else to see, a choice he'd made in order to continue his task. It was hardly his decision, anyway; he had to do what he had to do, by any means necessary.

"Are you okay?" William quietly asked, sitting next to him, and Reid nodded slowly. He winced at the motion, wiping dried blood from his bottom lip, and William shot the sharpest glare in Brown's direction that he had ever seen from someone so young as he looked over, as if he thought Brown was responsible.

"Was he part of this?" Mark suddenly asked, frowning, his fists clenched, and Brown stepped in front of them and closed the door. "He was apart of it, yes...but we don't know how yet."

"Why are we letting him be alone with my son?"

"Don't get me wrong. He fits into this somewhere. But there's evidence he took care of William and the other children; he's of no harm to them."

Caroline peered into the window, simply to be assured, and saw William smiling as he spoke unheard words. He seemed happier than she had seen him since they'd gotten him back. And the older one...he looked hardly strong enough to get to his feet, let alone do much of anything criminal.

"And there are still children missing?" Mark asked, and when Brown nodded he continued. "Why hasn't he said where they are? Where the _criminal behind this _is?"

Brown sighed, nearly answered, but then, from behind him, JJ did so instead. "Sir, we are doing the best we can to find the others, and the man behind it." She smiled sadly at them, crossing her arms gently across her chest. "But you have to understand. He's been through a lot of trauma."

"And you are?"

"Agent Jennifer Jareau, with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. His name is Dr. Spencer Reid...he's with us."

"He was in the FBI?" Mark's expression was one doubt, and JJ blinked. "Is. He is."

Brown cleared his throat, gesturing towards the door. "Shall we begin?"

"Yes." Caroline gently knocked on the door and nodded her head at William when he looked up. He rolled his eyes and then turned back to Reid. "I'll come back, okay?" he said, and Reid gave him a small smile. His eyes followed the boy as he left, and then he rested his head back against the chair, eyes closed again, looking worse than he had before; tired, and...

JJ caught Brown's arm before he could follow the three. "Detective, did you give him something?"

"For his panic attack this morning, yes. Prescribed, of course."

"I'd like to see his medical examination file, if you don't mind." _Or if you do, I actually don't care,_ she didn't add.

"Excuse me," Brown ignored her, and then went off to get the others into a room they could talk in. JJ huffed out a breath of pure frustration; she'd get Garcia on that later. "Are you okay, Spence?" she asked as she went over to him, handing down the pad of paper and pen.

_I'm very thirsty._

"Okay. I'll get you some water." She sat in the chair he was beside. He looked like he was falling asleep, and so she quickly continued. "But Spence...we need to talk about what happened to you, to the kids."

Reid shook his head, just slightly, but JJ did not let it go. She couldn't any longer. "Please. I know you're tired, but work with me here. Do you remember any names?"

Forcing his eyes open, Reid weakly replied, _Her name was Marian._

"Her?!" she exclaimed, loud enough he jumped, clearly trying to control her irritation of not being told this earlier. "There were two?"

_Were. She's dead now._

"What...happened?"

_Don't know. Just dead._

"And the other was...?"

_My — _Reid froze completely, then hesitated a few moments before roughly scratching that out and continuing on a new line. _Her husband. I...we never got a name._

"In two years?"

_I'm sorry. I'm really sorry._

"It's okay; I'm not mad. Anything you can tell me helps."

_She's the one who came to my house._

"Oh, Spence..did you ever know why? Why they did it, I mean?"

_She said...they were her family._

"Family?"

Reid nodded. _I'm not sure...I think a child of hers died. Maybe set her off. There were pictures on the wall by the stairs, but I never saw him. He was around ten._

"That makes sense of the age range for most of them, but...why abduct the thirteen and fourteen-year-old, then? Why keep them all this time? And why you?"

Reid swallowed with difficulty. _She didn't know she needed the younger more, I guess. Easier to control. Didn't require as much effort.__  
><em>

JJ was starting to feel a bit ill, and Spencer had gone paler than the paper he was writing on. "And...he still has them?"

_I'm really, really thirsty, please._

JJ didn't blink, didn't even look away, asking for a last time, "Spence...where are the other kids?"

Reid let out a single sob, lowering his head and placing his hand over his face, and she knew then, with heartbreaking certainty, that they would not be rescuing anyone else.

* * *

><p><strong>AN 2: To clear the confusion up (and because this is in no way a spoiler), the unsub is not anyone any of the team knows, nor is it any of their relatives. AKA, Spencer was going to say something completely different from 'my father.' :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I suck. Like, a _lot._ Don't hate me. Anyway, THANK YOU all yet again for your support! :)  
><strong>

**Reviews are always _super _appreciated! :')**

**WARNINGS: Mentions/implications of (past) abuse. ****  
><strong>

**_xxx_**

_"Which is the true nightmare; the horrific dream that you have in your sleep, or the dissatisfied reality that awaits you when you awake?" _

― Justin Alcala

**5.**

**THEN  
><strong>**(3 Days)**

_"Hey. Hey, can you hear me? Are you okay?"_

_Reid frowned and sighed, disappointed when his attempt to wake the unknown boy still sleeping on the mattress across from him failed. For the third time. He kept occasionally shifting around, like he was about to come to, but each time Reid spoke to him there was no response. At least, with him moving, Reid knew he was alive. He hadn't been so sure in the beginning._

_There was a window to his left, and with that he could tell, by the light, that it was about midday, while it had been night when he'd finally come out of his drugged haze. So, a couple of days already since he'd been taken. That wasn't good. But his team would be searching for him by now...right?_

What a stupid question, _he told himself. _Of course they're looking. It's not like they'd forget about you.

_He jerked his attention towards the stairs as the door opened with a creak, and the same woman who had been there before came down the steps, smiling at him like all of this was completely normal. She had a glass of water in her hand, and as she lifted it up to his lips he kept them tightly closed, trying to turn away, and she actually chuckled. "There's nothing in it. My husband will be home soon...don't want you sleeping through that!"_

_"Uh-huh," Reid grunted, unsure how else to reply to this woman (who was clearly on her own sort of drugs), and then he reluctantly accepted the drink, relieved when it cooled his throat and made it easier to talk._

_"There you go," she said when he'd finished, still too cheerful, and he bit his lip. "Can—can you—can I go to the bathroom?"_

_She seemed hesitant, and so he added, "It's just right there. You don't have to leave. Please? I _really_ need to go."_

_"Well," she murmured, checking her watch, and then she frowned. "You're not trying to trick me now, boy, are you?"_

_"No. Please?"_

_"Alright." She nodded, dug into her pocket, and unlocked his wrists. He immediately collapsed, groaning, and then, when the woman started to help him up, he dealt the hardest blow he could manage to what he hoped was her head and shoved her away. She fell back, stunned, and he scrambled to his feet, gasping. The child on the mattress—could he carry him? No, no, he needed to phone for help._ That's_ what he needed to do._

_He sprinted up the stairs and burst out into the house, startled by how large it was, and then began frantically searching for a telephone, ripping back the curtains, praying he found someone who could help outside—and staggered back when the only thing that met his eyes was a huge wooded area that appeared to surround them on all sides. Did they even have neighbors? Where the fuck was he?_

_He shook his head in disbelief, realizing his best chance—maybe his only chance—was still to dial for help—and then there was suddenly a voice shrieking directly into his ear, and he was grabbed roughly from behind, quite literally scaring the piss out of him._

_"Oh! You disgusting little_—_" She struck him, angrily, and he cried out, trying to fight her off—a surprisingly tough feat despite her initial appearance—and then she got her hands around his throat and tackled him to the floor._

_"Son of a _bitch!_" Reid choked out, enraged, flailing his limbs, and then the front door slammed open and the women turned her head to look, distracting her enough that Reid managed to fling her off. He coughed and gasped and staggered back to his feet, watching her—and so never saw the newcomers fist coming until it hit him, sending him reeling, collapsing into the small glass table behind him, which toppled over and only added to his painful landing, though very thankfully did not break._

_He recovered long enough to blink a few times, his vision and hearing only clear enough to see the two figures, standing now, in front of him, arguing loudly about something he couldn't make out. And then, the one who had just come in noticed him, grabbed him by his hair, and slammed his head back against the floor, and this time it was made sure that Reid didn't open his eyes again for a very long time._

**NOW**

Detective Brown was the first one back in the morning, just as angry looking as always, maybe even more so. He sat down, clasped his hands, and stared intently at Reid as he jerked back to wakefulness with a gasp, flailing his arm about to protect himself from what wasn't there. He snapped out of it sooner than he had before, however, straightening himself up. His stomach growled, and his mouth was dry enough again that it hurt to swallow, and he winced.

"Problem?" Brown asked as he opened the case file and pushed it in Reid's direction. "Because honestly, I'd be happy to get you out of this room. I'd be happy to stop this nonsense. So, if you could simply confess, we could all get on with our day."

Reid picked up the pen, wrote, _I can't._ and shoved it back towards him.

"I see." Brown sighed. "Dr. Reid, are you aware of how devastated the families of these children are? No, don't close your eyes again, I'm talking to you. Are you aware of how awful they're feeling? How impossible waking up every morning has been?"

Reid nodded once, solemnly. In fact, he knew the feelings quite well.

"Then wouldn't you want to do everything you could to get their kids back to them? Or at least, give them closure?"

He was getting so very tired of this. He didn't want to admit it again; it'd been hell shaking his head enough to allow JJ to realize what had happened, and even that wasn't the half of it. Why couldn't _she _tell the man? Why did it have to be him? He couldn't say anything else about it...they would have him arrested. They would charge him. And not just that...they would want him dead. He slowly replied, _You don't want the answer, _and then placed the pen down and shook his head.

"You think you know what I want?" Brown demanded, his voice raising, and Reid could see the man was at the very end of his tolerance. "Huh?"

_No, sir...I'm sorry, sir. _he answered, because that was what he was supposed to do; resign himself when he had made someone angry, do his best to please them enough they wouldn't hurt him...at least, not too much.

"Don't tell me you're sorry," he growled, and Reid flinched. "Tell me what I want to know!" He forced out a laugh when Reid looked up at him like he hadn't any idea what it was that the detective wanted to know, because if he didn't laugh, he was going to explode from every bit of rage he'd been keeping locked away all this time. "Let's start again, shall we? Did you assist in the kidnappings?"

_No._

"Really? Because we _will _talk to all of the children, and I know they all apparently love you, but don't you think that, eventually, the truth is going to come out?"

_I didn't help! I just...I took care of them. I was nice to them. I was._

"And the woman wasn't?"

_She was nicer when she was sad._

"And the man?"

Reid simply shook his head.

"He hurt you, didn't he?" Brown suddenly said, almost silently. "I know he did. I know everything he did." Reid stared at him, wide eyed, looking like he was about to have another breakdown, and Brown nodded smoothly. "Yeah. He's a real piece of work, isn't he? So why are you protecting him and what he's done?

Reid could have laughed. _Protecting him?! How am I protecting him?!  
><em>

"You've only just started cooperating, what, three days later?"

_I'm so scared, _Reid wanted to write, though he didn't. His eyes watered, and he looked away. _I'm so, so, so scared. I just want this all to be over with. I want JJ. I want my mom. But no one wants _me! _ Not after everything that happened. Only He wants me now. And He always gets His way eventually...always..._

"Maybe you had, or still have, feelings for him?" Brown said, and for the first time, his tone had changed. He wasn't angry or annoyed; he sounded almost like he was...regretful? "It's quite common after what you've been through...if you did in fact go through everything implied."

Reid actually choked at the accusation, taking a moment to recover, at which point he could have written a hundred things in response, including demanding if the man thought he'd given _himself_ all the scars he now had, but instead he settled with,_ I want a lawyer!_

"Oh, wouldn't you like that? Give me no answers at all?"

_This is illegal!_

"So is kidnapping, Dr. Reid."

_I didn't kidnap any of them! I didn't help, __I never even went outside! I wasn't His partner! They kidnapped ME! They held ME there, too!_

"Not in the basement, though, correct?" He glanced at Reid's arm on the table, which he then placed into his lap. "The marks that the rest of the children have on their ankles, from metal restraints, they're on your wrists...but they've healed more than theirs have."

_Sometimes._

"Sometimes? What does that mean?"

_It means sometimes!_

"Alright. So where were you held for all the other times?"

Reid exhaled sharply. He didn't respond, but he must have given away the answer in his expression anyway—_anywhere He wanted me to be._

"You did exactly what he wanted, did you? Everything. So isn't it true, isn't it possible, that if he asked you to help him...you would? Even...allow the children to be hurt?" There was that sound of regret again; he didn't want to be asking these questions. So why the hell was he? Reid had started quietly crying again, shaking his head, and then—

"Are the others dead, Dr. Reid? Did you—"

Something in Reid snapped, and he suddenly struck out before the sentence, the _accusation of him killing _could continue, his open hand colliding with the detective's cheek, causing the other man to jerk back in surprise. Reid gasped, horrified with himself, and leaned away. "I—I—"

"Christ!" Brown had clearly had enough. He abruptly pounded his fists against the table and stood up, shoving it against the agent. Reid cried out and crumpled onto the floor, curling into himself against the tile as Brown approached him, yelling. "Are you kidding me? Do you even realize how much trouble you're in? You wanna go away for assault, too? I'm taking this very, very seriously! You are our only lead, and I know—we all know—that you've got the answers. If there was anyone else who could tell me, _trust me_, I would call them!" He got right up in Reid's face, his fist up, like he was threatening to hit him back, and Reid cowered further, though he knew he deserved it...he always deserved it. "I'm getting three hours sleep every night, and it does not make me a patient man. I promise you, I'm going to make your life a living hell until you tell every little piece of information I want to know, got it? Got it? So help me god, you better answer! Do you understand me?"

"Yessir, yessir, yessir!" Reid brokenly choked out between sobs, and Brown was so surprised that the agent had actually spoken that he stepped back, jumping when he heard a shout of, "Detective!" and turning around to see Hotchner standing in the doorway, his expression one of utter contempt.

Emily gently pushed in past him and went over to Reid while Brown walked up to Hotch, who began talking before the detective could open his mouth. "You are no longer apart of this interrogation, not with him. You have already lied to us, along with attempting to have him sign a confession without a lawyer present. I promise I will go over your head, all the way to the Director if I have to, in order to prevent you from walking through this door for the remainder of his case. I suggest you go quietly; I don't want to make a scene in front of the people who think so highly of you. But Detective, I will, and I suggest you do not test me on that."

Brown looked both startled and enraged, somehow at the same time, as Hotch placed his hand out for the key to his agent's handcuffs, and then got out of the way in one smooth step and gestured for the man to get the _hell_ out.

Brown did both things without needing any coercing, grabbing his file and coat and grumbling to himself the whole time. Hotchner turned his attention to Prentiss, who was still trying to calm Reid down, a very difficult task considering she couldn't touch him. He was pulling on the handcuffs, trying hopelessly to free himself, and seemed to be completely caught up in his head. "I'll be good," he was murmuring, dazedly, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Ssh, Spencer," she said between his gasping, managing to unlock his restraints and then giving him room. "Spencer, it's okay, you're okay..."

The sound of his distress was absolutely heartbreaking, and there was nothing that would quiet him. He'd upset Him, oh _god_ had he done it now; he'd really fucked up. He was going to get such a beating for fighting, for being so much trouble, for _hitting _Him, for behaving like he was never, _ever_ allowed to, and...and...he just...he couldn't...he...

He took a few more shallow, heaving breaths, and then his eyes rolled up and he collapsed heavily into Emily's lap, prompting a startled cry from the older agent.

"Shi—Reid!"


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Thanks guys _so so_ much! Hope you like this next chapter! :)**

**Reviews are always are _super duper_ appreciated! I want to hear what you liked, or didn't, or think I could do better at! It all helps! :D**

**EDITED: It was supposed to say 1 Week, not 1 Month below. Not that that really makes any difference to the story in general, but I thought I'd point it out anyway :D**

**WARNINGS: Mentions/implications of abuse of _every kind._**

_**xxx**_

_"All things truly wicked start from innocence."_

_—_Ernest Hemingway

**6.**

**THEN  
>(1 Week)<strong>

_"You're turning out to be almost more trouble than you're worth, you know that?"_

_Reid glared, saying nothing. The violent, inhumane thing that stood in front of him as he hung from the chain in the basement, someone he only knew as The Man, pressed His index finger to the agent's lips, which he would've tried to bite had he not already, painfully, found out where that would get him._

_"This pretty little mouth of yours is the problem. You don't know when to shut it. Therefore, I think we're going to have to establish a few more rules...You're not to speak another word unless it's to answer to me, and only me. And then, you may only say 'yes sir', or 'no sir.'" He paused when Reid laughed, outright into His face. "Oh, you think that's funny? You won't. You understand? You're to answer that with 'yes sir', boy. We might even work on 'Master', later, hmm? Just to sweeten the deal. Do you understand?"_

_Reid scowled at him, gritted out, "Go fuck yourself." and the Man suddenly, unhesitatingly shoved His lit cigar against the agent's shoulder, and he screamed._

_"I'm not going to ask again, pet."_

_"Go to hell, you sick bastard! I'm not your pet!"_

_"Wrong." He burned him again._

_"Fuck you!"_

_The cigar touched his skin again, this time on the side of his neck. He writhed, vaguely hearing William crying in the background. __"My team is going to find you—"_

_Another burn._

_"—and you're never going to get—"_

_And another._

_"—away...with...this!"_

_And another._

_Reid was crying now, tears involuntarily falling down his cheeks, yet he still didn't reply with the two words The Man wanted to hear; never, ever, ever would he say them, not even as The Man continued. He was strong. He was strong. __He would not break. He would _not_ break._

_The Man took a long drag, tapping His foot as He looked His trembling captive over. "Okay," He said, calmly, and then turned away. Reid closed his eyes for a moment, trying to recollect himself__—and then he heard William shriek. The Man had come over to the kid with the cigar, holding it far to close to him, forcing him all the way to the end of the bed and his chain, leaving him unable to move any further away._

_"Don't you dare! Leave him alone!"_

_"Two words," The Man said, a sick smile on His face. "That's all I want...for now. Say it or the next thing I burn is him."_

_"You don't have to do this!" Reid groaned, but when The Man leaned the cigar down towards the boy's face, he shouted, "Okay! Okay, stop! You win! Please don't!"_

_The Man gave a little more room between the weapon and William, looking at the agent expectantly. "Well?"_

_"I...I...understand. S...sir."_

_"Don't stutter."_

_"I understand...sir." Reid wanted to throw up, but The Man, seemingly pleased, got away from William, proceeding to saunter back over to Reid, grab him by the neck, and then forcibly kiss him. When He was through, He grinned and said, "Good little pet."_

_Reid smiled back, and then spat directly into His face. The Man exclaimed in disgust, wiped it away with His sleeve, and then proceeded to pry Reid's mouth back open and shove the end of the cigar into it. Reid choked and cried out, trying to spit it back out as it burned his tongue and sent awful, powdery ashes down his throat. The Man removed it once it'd been extinguished, and then Reid really did get sick as He watched, the side of His upper lip twitching up. "Stupid boy," He growled once Reid stopped, gasping for air, hanging limply. He would not break. He was strong. He would not...he could not..._

_"You'll learn. I can guarantee you that. You'll learn fast."_

**NOW**

Reid was only out for a minute; two at the most. He'd writhed under Emily's hand, which had been gently stroking his hair, the very second he came to and then crawled away to sit against the wall, his knees up against his chest, eyes staring somewhere beyond her. He was no longer crying, however, and had somehow seemed to calmed completely, which made her wonder if them calling an ambulance had been the right move. And clearly it hadn't been, because when it got there, and all the medics wanted to do was poke and prod at him to assure he was as alright, he practically hid behind Morgan, refusing to look at any of them, until they all realized he was not going to consent to another exam. The medics did go over his file, however, and asked if they'd used the Diazepam prescribed, so that he _wouldn't_ panic so much he blacked out, as had apparently happened at the hospital the night he was admitted.

"Actually, um, could we take a look at his records?" JJ asked in response, holding out her badge and ID for them to see, and they nodded, faxing them over before they left. Garcia retrieved them first, half because she had been closest and half because she'd been the only one willing to read them first. And it wasn't really that she was willing...that was the wrong word. She was...concerned. And, after she'd gone over them, scarcely breathing, she was appalled, and not only that, angry. She had an unreadable, solemn expression on her face as she approached the others, and when Morgan asked what was wrong, she simply gave him the papers and then turned around, a hand over her mouth as she held back tears.

"Fuck!" Morgan wanted to send his fist through the wall, or better yet, through Detective Brown's head. That man would never hear the end of this; he would make sure of that.

"What?" Prentiss frowned, coming up beside him, and then after a moment she gasped. "Oh, Christ."

JJ closed her eyes. She didn't want to read it; she wasn't prepared to know what was on it, despite it being the only thought in her head since she'd realized it was being hid from them. Morgan almost dumped the papers into her arms anyway as he passed, and although Hotch called his name, none of them stopped him. He found Brown in a back hallway, pacing and angrily grumbling to himself, and, unable to control his anger, Morgan went up and punched him, hard._  
><em>

Brown exclaimed in surprise and staggered back. "What the hell?"

"You son of a bitch!" Morgan growled, pushing him back."You knew! You knew everything! You had his records!"

"What the hell are you―"

"We read his medical exam." He stared at the detective, unflinchingly. "The medics from the _ambulance _we had to call for him after your episode gave it to us, since you clearly had no plans of letting it go."

Brown knew he was caught, but hell if he wasn't going to play it out like he didn't. "I have no idea what you're―it―it doesn't change―"

"It doesn't change anything? Is that what you were gonna say? He was _brutalized_, Detective! How does that not change anything?"

"I―"

"No," Morgan said, shoving the man back against the wall and keeping him there with an arm across his chest. "You shut the fuck up and listen to me. Did you ever even read it?"

"I read it," Brown grunted out, shaking his head. "I read it."

"Really? The whole thing? How about I go through it again for you, nice and slow, just to be sure, hmm?"

"No."

"Oh, what, _now_ you're squeamish? Which part made you think it was alright to keep harrassin' him, huh? To just keep pushin'? Which part?" Brown was staring at him, eyes wide, but Morgan was relentless, seething. "Was it because you knew he wouldn't fight back? That's because he was _brainwashed_, you bastard; tortured, burned, beaten into submission so many times, maybe every Goddamn day, that they actually don't know if he'll ever completely recover from it all. And Christ―he was r―I can't even―you saw that part, too. I know you did."

Brown drew in a shaky breath. "Yes."

"You know the word before that was _repetitive. _You know what that means, right? And you acted like it was all a game! Do you think he sees it as a game? What, did you think it was fuckin' funny? Huh? Did you?"

"Morgan!" Hotch called his name again as he approached, crossing his arms in obvious displeasure, but by the fact he didn't seem too concerned over Brown's injury, Morgan suspected it was displeasure for what had been done to their own agent.

Morgan released the man, stepping back, breathing hard. "You son of a bitch," he spat again. "You stay the hell away from him." And with that, he stormed off, leaving Hotch glaring at Brown. "Your supervisor will certainly be hearing about this," he stated simply, and then Brown was alone. He watched them go, a hand clutching his bloody nose, and then hung his head.

_**xxx**_

Once Reid had been to the bathroom, gotten something to drink, and was in the room opposite the last, thoroughly convinced that it would only be the calm, collected members of his team that would ask the questions now, JJ sat across from him and rubbed her tired, tearful eyes. "Spence? Spencer...God...we know. I mean, we know what happened..."

Reid bit his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood; guilt and fear and utter humiliation overwhelmed him to the point where he wanted to scream. He didn't want them to know; he couldn't_ let_them know! _No, you don't. You just don't. You can't!_

"No. You're right. We can't; not really. But you're safe now. You're okay. I promise you, you're safe."

_No. No! Not safe. Never safe. He's still out there. He's going to come back, and He's going to take me again, and the kids, and―_ He'd started shaking too hard to finish, and he buried his face into his hands while she read it and then took in a breath as shaky as he was. "We won't let that happen! Not to any of you."

Reid sobbed and started writing again, barely legible. _You don't understand! I left! I took them and I left! I wasn't allowed to leave! He'll kill me! I used to try, and He found me every time! I couldn't run fast enough, the woods were too big, and He hurt me, He hurt me so much, and―He's gonna kill us!_

JJ was quietly shushing him as he wrote, cooing, "Ssh, please calm down, just breathe...", and then, when she could read it, she placed a hand to her chest, because it honestly hurt. She hated seeing him like this, she wanted to comfort him, and―

"Reid. Reid! Listen to me, this is very important. The house was in the woods?" A feeble nod was his response. "Were there neighbors?"

Reid sniffled, shaking his head, and then she almost went on before he started to write. _Yes. But they only stayed there for half the year...late winter or spring._ And by the time they had returned the first time, he didn't add, he had already accepted the fact he would not be saved, and pitifully hadn't even tried. It was never worth the pain his disobedience brought. _They even came over a few times for dinner...only the kids who didn't fight or cry anymore were allowed upstairs with them. The woman saw me once..._

"How could she not say anything? Or call the police?"

_Her husband wouldn't let her...he didn't care, and I think he hit her, just like He hit Marian. She always had a different bruise on her face when she came...and she was always really quiet._

"Oh, Spence." she murmured, resisting the urge she had to reach out and put her hand on his. "Where...were you kept?"

_They were in the basement. It had beds and all, but they were all chained to them. She said once they learned to behave, she'd take them off, but she never did. I went down there, too, sometimes...when I was bad._

JJ bit her lip, trying to stay on top of the subject. "And Marian never said his name?"

_Not around me. Always sweetie, or sweetheart._

"If we had a picture of the outside of the house, if we could find one...or if we could find their pictures, would you be able to identify them?"

_I will never, ever forget._

"I know. We're going to find him, okay?"

_He's not there!_

"What?"

_The house. After she died, He left. That's how we got out._

"He just...left?"

_He was doing it for her. He never liked the kids. He was so angry...so angry all the time. And if they― _He stopped, staring blankly at the paper.

She read it as well as she could while it was still upside down. "...Spence?"

_If they got too out of line, He would bring them upstairs and beat them until He thought they'd learned, or..._

JJ swallowed hard. He didn't need to finish. Reid all of a sudden let out a cry of pain as if he'd been struck, making her jump, and he bent forward, sobbing against his hands, his entire body trembling.

"What's wrong?" She struggled to her knees beside him. "Spencer, w-what can I do? We can stop, we'll stop, will that―?"

Reid shook his head, staggered to his feet, grabbed the notepad, scribbled something down, and then placed it back down in front of her. She watched him as he then went over to the opposite corner, numbly staring back, tears still rushing down his face, and then he had to look away. He couldn't meet her eyes after everything he had done...after everything he hadn't been able to stop. It was over now. It didn't matter anymore. She would never be able to look at him the same way again...none of them would. And he knew that was exactly what he deserved.

She picked up the notepad, and her blood ran cold.

_He made me watch. He always made me watch. He made me bury them._

_There are seven children in the backyard of their house..._

_And I'm the one who put them there._


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Thank you guys so much for your continued support! Hope you enjoy this chapter, too! THANK YOU to [reidfan1971] for helping me out with the ending conversation with Reid/Rossi. And of course, to everyone else :) *heart emoticon that fanfiction won't allow me to put***

**Reviews, as always, are very greatly appreciated and very much loved. :') **

**_xxx_**

_"To weep is to make less the depth of grief."_

― William Shakespeare

**7.**

**THEN  
>(4 Months)<strong>

_"Spencer. Spencer! Wake up!"_

_Reid groaned, blinking open his eyes (or really, his eye; one of them was bruised enough it would not cooperate) and trying to clear his vision enough to see that all four of the children before him were awake, the two closest to the middle bed uncomfortably crowded around it, around the girl who had been placed here less than a week ago, who, as his senses came back, he could hear was wheezing painfully, loudly._

_"Something's wrong with her," Lauren, the oldest of them at twelve, had the girl in her arms as best she could with the length of her chain pulled taut. "What do I do? What do I _do?_"_

_"W-what happened? What's wrong?"_

_"I don't know!"_

_The very youngest of them, Rosie, whimpered and said, "My brother did that. He needed medicine. Does she have medicine?"_

_"What medicine?" Lauren gasped, distressed to the point where she was panting almost as hard as the girl._

_"Oh my God," Reid said at last as it clicked, kicking his foot against the ground to steady himself. "She's having an asthma attack."_

_Will stood up and squinted around in the darkness. "Does she have an inhaler?"_

_"They didn't bring one with her...maybe upstairs?"_

_"Rosie, bang on the wall! You're right next to it!"_

_"But they're sleeping..."_

_"And she's dying!"_

_Reid cut them all off. "Get her up! Get her sitting up!"_

_"What?"_

_"Just do it! Now!"_

_Lauren grabbed the girl under her arms and brought her up to sit, and her head lolled onto her shoulders._

_"Hey, hey! Sweetie!" Reid said, and then the girl glanced up at him, dazed,__ Lauren holding her steady so she couldn't fall back down._

_"Just try to breathe, okay? Just breathe. Deep breaths. With me, okay? Look at me! In through your nose...out through your mouth...in...out...Yeah, just like that. You're gonna be okay, sweetheart, it's gonna be okay."_

_Lauren finally understood he was trying to calm her out of the attack, and then gestured her head towards Will, who began rubbing comforting circles in the girl's back. Rosie started humming something slow and melodic, probably to calm herself as much as the other girl, slowly rocking back and forth in her bed._

_"It's gonna be okay. I promise, you're gonna see your mom and dad again soon, okay?" Reid continued, tears beginning to fall down his cheeks. "It's okay. Sssh. Sssh. It's okay, it's okay..."_

_After a long, uncertain amount of time, the girl's breathing started to slow; just a bit at first, and then over a while longer evened back out. Lauren finally looked up, vision blurred with tears, and heard that Reid was still mumbling, very quietly, his eyes closed now. "Hey," she said. "Spencer!"_

_Reid raised his head a bit, blinking hard at her, and she gestured towards where the girl was sleeping soundly in her arms, smiling at him. "It worked. She's okay!"_

_The agent managed a weak smile and nod before he groaned softly and slipped back into a restless sleep as he so often did anymore. With a sigh, Lauren turned her attention to the others. Rosie was totally lost in slumber now, as well, and Will was getting there. She supposed it was safe for her to put the girl down now and return to her own bed...but instead, she just lowered both of them back down onto the mattress they were on now, burying her face in the other girl's hair, wishing she was back home and it was her own little sister beside her. She wondered if she'd ever even see her family again; while Spencer's words had been about as comforting as they could hope for down here in this situation, that's all they'd been: words. And words wouldn't get them out of here, words wouldn't make them be rescued faster, and...words wouldn't stop this little girl from having another attack, or another, and she knew that eventually they would be helpless to assist her. They couldn't even help themselves._

_"I'm sorry," she tearfully murmured into the girl's hair, speaking to the five of them here and everyone that she might never see again. She knew it wasn't her fault, but that didn't make her sorrow any less. "I'm so, so sorry."_

**NOW**

For the sole reason of the team not being able to stand Reid spending another night one of those rooms, alone, with nothing but the cold floor or hard chair to do so on, they convinced two officers to watch him and allow him to move to the couch in their own break room. The promise was that he would cause no trouble, and he didn't. In fact, once he had calmed down, he slept relatively soundly, aside from several, incoherently mumbled sentences, through most of the night, blissfully unaware of the less-than-gentle looks he received every time someone came in.

The team hadn't shared most of the information of what was going on with any of the others, only that Brown was no longer seen as fit to continue the interrogation part of the investigation. But assuming the precinct had listened to the detective wholeheartedly about the case, about his suspect, they probably suspected the worst. Corruption and whatnot, maybe. JJ had only shared with anyone the fact that the seven were dead; she didn't know if she could handle repeating the rest, even to the rest of her team.

Then, Garcia, at around 4 AM, called awake the others, most dozing in their chairs, and began to speak as they huddled around the tiny screen of her laptop.

"Alright, so really, this should've been impossible. Actually, for anyone else it would be. Lucky you have me, right? Right? Yeah, okay. So." She clicked to show a map of the state. "For one, there are a lot of wooded areas here, okay. Two, there is no property in any of the ones where living is legal which has Marian as a registered name; no currently-being-lived-in property at all, actually. I looked through old factories, abandoned places, a few of which I _swear to you_ are haunted, all in the middle of nowhere, nothin'." She held up a finger, dramatically. "But! Then, I thought that just maybe they were crazy enough to be in an actual neighborhood, one where the houses each had a good amount of land between them? Anyway, I went with it and found two possible locations.

"One of them is gated, highly secured, no way they could've gotten away with it. The _other,_" she zoomed in on a clump of trees with blackened squares every so often, "is not. And what did I find when I went through their registry? This one, in the middle, under one fifty-two-year-old _Mariana _Duboir, and wow did I find the four-one-one on her. She grew up with her single dad blaming her for her mother dying during birth. And when I say blaming, I mean with fists, not words. She was admitted to the hospital four times as a minor."

"Garcia," JJ interrupted, "did she lose a child?"

"She lost _two._ Three and a half years ago she miscarried, and a year after that, a ten year old Cody Deboir was found dead in the house after police responded to a nine-one-one call. He drowned in the bathtub."

"At ten years old?" Rossi asked, and Garcia looked at him sadly. "It was inconclusive if he was held down. He did have signs of previous physical abuse, however."

"And the husband?"

Garcia shook her head. "There's no record she's married. Divorced, almost twenty years ago, from someone who now lives in California—total model citizen, by the way, remarried, three kids, he's even a kindergarten teacher—but...nothing now."

"That's not possible." JJ said, sticking a hand in her pocket. "There were two. There's gotta be something, anything."

"I'm sorry, hon. There just isn't. And you know I'd find him if there was. Maybe they were never married?"

"Maybe. Why call him her husband then?"

Hotch glanced at her. "Reid doesn't remember anything about him?"

"Oh, he remembers everything about him. He just never got a name." She shook her head. "The kids back with their parents right now are alive because she wanted them to be, not because the unsub did. Spence told me that when the man would get angry enough at the kids, he would beat them. Marian, too."

Morgan scoffed and looked away, and Rossi nodded slowly. "He gets off on pain, then. Reliving a childhood memory? Maybe someone did that to him, or a sibling, and he's reenacting the scene where he's the one in control."

"And that could be a lot of the PTSD causes," Prentiss said, and JJ nodded, but it was slow, hesitant, enough that Hotch noticed. "What is it?"

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. As much as the words hurt her to say, it didn't make them any less true, and they deserved to know. "He killed the seven children that way. And...made Spence bury them."

"Christ!" Morgan cursed, slamming his fist onto the table. "I want this guys' fuckin' head."

"Easy," Hotch warned sternly, and Prentiss frowned. "But then why did they find just one? The girl, nine, Missy Thompson. She was found on the side of the highway."

"Maybe that was a test, to see if it would be found?"

Rossi shook his head. "No...I don't think he would be that risky. He's managed to stay under the radar completely...he wouldn't be that disorganized."

"What about the wife?" Morgan pointed at the laptop. "How did Missy Thompson die?"

"Ahh...suffocation," Garcia frowned sadly. "An asthma attack. Says she probably had a few minor ones before the one that killed her. No medication was given any of the times."

"I'm going to assume that wasn't part of their plan."

"And she wanted her to be found. She felt bad." Garcia clicked at the keyboard a few more times before there was a knock on the door, and they turned to see Reid, along with one of his officers.

"He needed to see you immediately," the officer said, and Reid shuffled a couple feet forward before he stopped, handing his notepad to Morgan, who was closest.

_I remember another name. Her son's, I think, maybe. Cody...there wasn't a Cody with us. Does that help?_

"Well shit." Morgan handed the paper over, and after they'd all seen it, it was already settled.

"Officer," Hotchner said quickly, "uncuff him. Release him into our custody. We have the proof you need of his innocence."

**_xxx_**

It had been barely twenty minutes after his release, sitting in the corner of the room in a chair, before Reid had begun to feel awful again. Here he was, and here seven children weren't. Here he was, free, and somewhere, The Man was as well. He didn't see any reason he should be happy. He didn't see any reason he should be anything but miserable. He watched the team put together their testimony, bit by bit, and knew he would remain out of jail, but he still couldn't get himself to relax. He didn't deserve to, though, did he? Not really. He wasn't innocent, and he certainly wasn't free. No, he would never be either of those. Not ever. Not while He was still out there. Not while the memories and the fear haunted him with every breath he took.

Rossi, after a few minutes of glancing over at their saddened friend, pulled up a chair next to him and sat. Reid flinched and turned his head away as if he expected violence, and Rossi gently said, "I just want to talk, Spencer. Okay? I'm not going to hurt you. You have to know that. None of us ever would ever hurt you. Okay?"

Reid raised his head a bit and nodded, looking at the man out of the corner of his eyes.

"You know," Rossi began, slowly, crossing his legs and leaning back, "I've done some awful things. Terrible, awful things. When I was in the war...and when I wasn't."

A bit curious as to where this was going, Reid looked up. Rossi acted like he didn't notice. "I've had to kill. I've had to watch people—good people—die right in front of me. And I've had to tell their families, their friends...live with it myself. It's part of the job." He turned his gaze to Reid, who immediately turned his own down to the floor. "But...you have to remember the people you_do _save, the people you give the satisfaction of knowing that the one who tried to take away their life is gone for good. Reid, eight kids are alive because of you, because of what you did. And you have to understand...that the others...they are not dead because of you. You did not cause it, and you certainly didn't kill them yourself."

_I didn't stop Him, _Reid wrote onto the notepad he'd been hugging to his chest.

"Didn't, or couldn't?"

Reid hesitated, and Rossi sighed. "Didn't and couldn't are two very, very different things. If you didn't, that is a choice you made for yourself. If you couldn't, Reid...that's a choice that was made_for_ you. If your life was being threatened to the point where you _couldn't,_ then it is not your fault."

_I should have tried! I should have done something...anything!_

"Every single day while I was in Vietnam, I thought that too. Every single day. Sometimes, though, Reid...sometimes there's nothing you can do. But you need to keep yourself alive, no matter what, and I know that sounds selfish, but it means you can go on to help more people. What happened to those kids is unforgivable, but Reid, _you _didn't kill them. There was nothing you could do, but that doesn't mean you were helpless.

"It means there was nothing you could do, and that's that. I'm still kept up by nightmares of those I couldn't save. But because all of us are alive, hundreds of others are, too. Because _you're_alive, those kids are sleeping in their beds tonight, with their parents and sisters and brothers, and they couldn't be more grateful to you, because _you _are the reason they're there. You took care of them all to the best of your ability, and that's all you could do. That's all anyone ever expected of you, and all you should have ever expected out of yourself. None of us blame you, Reid; none of us. We know it's not your fault. We know you did everything you possibly could to save them all, and we're so, so proud of you. You heard that, right? We're _proud _of you. You're here, and you're alive, and we couldn't be happier about that. Don't think for a second that any of us wish you weren't."

It was silent for a long moment as Reid processed the words, processed the emotions the words brought onto him, and then suddenly he burst into tears and leaned forward, resting his forehead against Rossi's arm. Rossi did not try to touch him, allowing him to seek out whatever little comfort he wanted, and he looked up to find the others watching, brokenhearted. Thankfully, however, Reid wasn't crying in distress; no, his tears were of relief, of actual, pure, utter relief, because after being told for so long that he would never, ever be forgiven for what he'd done...he just had been. They wanted him. His family wanted him here. He was wanted...he was _loved._

And only then did Reid realize that he had forgotten what being loved felt like.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Oh my god! Over 100 follows, almost 50 favorites, and 70 reviews? You guys are insanely awesome! I can't believe how well this has been received, I totally didn't expect that on starting out :D I hope you guys like this next chapter just as much as the others! :D **

**Reviews, as always, are super duper appreciated and very much loved! :')**

**WARNINGS: More (past) abuse of victims, though it's mostly physical/emotional here. **

**_xxx_**

_"There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds." _

― Laurell K. Hamilton

**8.**

**THEN**  
><strong>(6 Months)<strong>

_"What the hell are you smiling at, boy?" The Man peered over the top of His newspaper, suspicious. Reid was lying on his side, right where he was supposed to be, on His bed. And he was fucking grinning. "Something funny?"_

_Reid smirked bigger, to the point where his teeth were showing, and The Man placed the paper down on His lap. "Are you trying to piss me off?"_

_"Fuck you."_

_The Man glared at him and sighed. "Oh, pet. We'd been making such good progress." He stood up, and Reid probably should've cowered and begged Him not to hurt him, but instead he just laughed, loudly, and continued to do so even when The Man's hand slapped him across his face. Then, when that failed, He grabbed Reid around his throat, which successfully silenced him, although he was somehow still smiling. The Man scowled. "_What?_"_

_"Your paper—" he gasped out, and The Man threw him back onto the mattress, turning around and picking up the newspaper. He flipped it around to the side Reid would've been able to see, and audibly growled at the article on the back page, directly under a large picture of the very agent He had in His room._

_"They're gonna find me." Reid said, because for the first time in a while, he really believed it. "They're gonna find the kids. They're gonna find _you_."_

_"Oh, are they now?" The Man laughed. "Just wait. You'll be old news before you know it."_

_"You said that before! And they're still looking!"_

_He hit Reid again, and the younger scooted away, back towards the other side of the bed. _

_"Give it another six months, another year."_

_"No. No. I won't be here that long." Reid shook his head, and The Man lunged out and grabbed him, dragging him towards Him until he was bent over the side of the bed, his knees on the ground. "You think you're gonna leave? You think you're gonna get away from me?"_

_"Let go!"_

_"You best shut your mouth. I never said you could talk, did I?" He grabbed the belt He had turned into a weapon from the closet and then held it up for Reid to see, pleased to see this disgusting defiance turn back into fear. "You are never going to leave. They will never find you." He whipped him once, twice, three times, and kept shouting as he did so. "You are nothing! You are nothing! They will never find you! And do you really think they would want you back even if they did? Look at yourself, slut! You're worthless. You're nothing, nothing without me. They don't want you. No one wants you. I'm the only one who will ever give a shit about you, you hear me? And you will treat me with respect!"_

_Reid collapsed when The Man released him, whimpering, curling into himself. The Man went into the bathroom, grabbed a bottle from the cabinet, and then came back, holding it, thankfully still capped, over the younger's back. Reid saw it and immediately flipped over and began begging for The Man's forgiveness, because he knew exactly what was in the container, and he knew exactly what The Man was planning to do with it. He had done it before, and Reid would have done absolutely anything to prevent it from happening again. "Please! I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I won't leave! I'll stay! Please don't!"_

_The Man lowered his arm, and yet Reid wasn't paying attention. "Please...I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Master, I'm sorry. Please don't. I'll do whatever you want. Please..."_

_"Oh, pet." The Man cooed, grabbing Reid's arm and helping him to his feet and back onto the bed. "I know. I know you're sorry. And you won't ever talk to me like that again, will you?"_

_"No. No, sir. No, Master. No." Reid sniffled against the blankets, shaking his head weakly. _

_"You love me?"_

_"Yes, sir."_

_"Hm?"_

_"I love you, Master."_

_"That's good to hear," The Man said, and then He opened the bottle of alcohol anyway. "Maybe next time you'll think about that before you piss me off."_

**NOW**

While the rest of the team and a few officers from the precinct made the two-hour long journey to the unsub's house in Rockford, Garcia, after taking herself and Reid back to the hotel, had been doing everything in her power to find every male Mariana had ever been in contact with in her life. She started with her high school yearbooks, where she and her then-boyfriend had been voted cutest couple her senior year, then went to her coworkers, her extended family (because Garcia unfortunately decided it couldn't be ruled out that they had been related, and that that was why there was no record) and then, most successfully, her long-since deserted social networking profiles, where she found twelve more associates. She put together their pictures, their backgrounds, their current occupations and supposed living quarters, as well as their closest friends. The team would have to go to each of them, most likely...not a single one had a clean record. They all seemed like equally awful people; she had sure known how to pick the best of them.

She glanced over to the bed closest to the wall, where Reid had, after taking a very long shower, snuggled up under the blankets and remained asleep ever since, though it hardly seemed peaceful. She looked back at him every time she heard movement or noise from him, unable to help her concern, only able to watch, helplessly, as he twisted and whimpered softly, waiting for him to settle back down or startle himself awake. It was emotionally agonizing to see how much he was affected by what happened, and even worse to _know _what had happened, even if it had only been the basic outlines, the worst parts, the only parts they were probably going to know about, at least for a long while. And maybe that was for the best…the medical exam had been bad enough. Garcia knew he had the ability to recover...he had from everything else on this job. But this time...it was so very different this time. They had seen PTSD with Agent Gideon, certain times in particular more than others, but Reid's severity couldn't be hidden or ignored or brushed off.

_Jason Gideon._ Garcia scowled. In the worst two years of their lives, none of them had heard anything from the former federal agent, who had taken off a year before that to only God knew where—if even God knew! No letters aside from the final one that broke Spencer's heart, no calls...nothing. And quite truthfully Garcia had understood his reasons for leaving. But his reasons for not calling? Not joining the search? Not showing even the minimum amount of care that the man that had looked up to him had been taken away? Had he been completely unaware of everything this entire time?

Reid was mumbling when she came out of her head, and then he jerked upright, panting, tears streaking down his face. She held her hands out and immediately began to calmly say, "It's okay, Spencer. It's okay. You're safe. You're in the hotel, remember? I brought you here. It's okay."

He watched her with wide eyes for a few moments as he tried to shove his memories away and concentrate, and then he fell back to stare at the ceiling, catching his breath, putting his arm over his eyes. _Hotel. Hotel. Garcia. No ropes. No Him. No Him.  
><em>

"How are you feeling? Do you need something?"

Reid shook his head, but in fact desperately wanted—no, _needed_—another shower, another two showers, another ten. He didn't know if there was enough soap and water in the world to get rid of the dirtiness he felt, the dirtiness he_ was_. He propped himself up on his elbows and made a very small gesture towards the bathroom, and Garcia nodded. "You don't have to ask, pet," she said, smiling, but Reid flinched and ended up cowering back under the covers.

"I'm s—what did I say wrong?" She was so confused—she wanted their old genius back!—and then she thought quickly and began on a different subject. "So I got you something…a present!" She retrieved her laptop, clicked a few times, and then sat it on the bed beside Reid. The younger man at last peered out, wiping tears from his face, looking cautiously at the screen like he was afraid something would jump out of it and bite him. The page it was on was of a large, hardcover book on chemical engineering that she just so happened to have ordered for him, and she smiled at him.

"I thought it might be something you'd like! It just came out, so…Anyway, yeah. That'll be yours as soon as we get back to Quantico."

Reid reached out tentatively to scroll down and read the rest of the page, and then he smiled shyly up at her, nodding.

"Oh, good, good." She clapped her hands together once and then noticed Reid was slowly typing something. He turned it back around after a moment to show her, where he had written in the search bar in the corner.

_It's great! Thank you! I missed reading! I missed you…I missed you all._

"We missed you, too, sweetness. You know…we wrote to you while you were gone."

Reid looked at her funny, like he was wondering if she had been expecting him to get mail, and she added, "I mean…in a binder. I think JJ brought it with her, if you wanted to...anyway, there are letters to you in it. We wrote almost every week, sometimes every day. And that isn't even all of them. So, you know, you could see everything that had happened…when you came back."

The younger had started tearing up again, but he was smiling, and he clumsily replied, _I didn't know if you…if any of you had…He told me that you wouldn't care after a while…after everyone forgot…that He was the only one who did. That...you would forget about me._

"Oh, love. You never believed that...did you? That we didn't miss you every second you were gone?"

Reid closed his eyes, erased the typing, and then got up and locked himself into the bathroom. When he came back out a while later, his hair making water tracks down the sweater Morgan had given him to wear, he dazedly sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at the carpet. His second shower alone, safe, and his second time entering a bedroom where no one was waiting for him to do unspeakable things. He was vaguely, very vaguely, beginning to believe that, just maybe, he was okay…at least for now. Not psychologically (no, definitely not that), but physically he felt almost…better? The lesions on his back had healed enough they hadn't bled in the shower, and The Man was not around to give Reid more. He was exhausted from nightmares, yes, but when he was awake, he knew he was no longer with Him. This was not a dream…He was not going to scream at Reid for opening his mouth, or doing things without permission, or beat him back into silence if he said the wrong thing. The word 'Master' did not have to pass his lips here...and everything else had the potential to.

"Hello," Garcia smiled at him from where she sat at the desk, and then, after a long moment, Reid mumbled something, hardly above a whisper, before he slowly raised his eyes to hers, cleared his throat, and said, "Hi...?"

Garcia brightened up immensely. "Hi!" she replied, cheerfully, and Reid managed a smile, too, because there had been no undesirable consequences, and he did, in fact, still know how to speak. "C-c…" he began, frowning, pushing his hair out of his face. "I—I'm…I'm h-hungry?" The words, again, came out as a question instead of a statement, quiet, higher in pitch than his voice usually would be, but Garcia laughed and nodded, and her face seemed to have more color than it had since he had seen her the first time. "Whatever you want, I'll get it. D-do you wanna go? With me, I mean? Outside?"

Reid glanced over at the window, the curtains of which were cracked open a bit, and sternly shook his head. One risk at a time.

"Okay, that's okay. That's okay." She placed a hand over her chest and sighed in content. "I've missed your voice, Spencer."

Reid nodded in agreement, but he wasn't terribly sure how he felt about it. Disobedient, that's how he felt. Master didn't want him talking to anyone else but Him. And Reid couldn't kick the desire to please Him out of his head.

_"I think you're protecting him. Do you have feelings for him? It's quite common after everything you've gone through..."_

Reid might have thought so once. But when Rossi had spoken to him, he had recalled what it really felt like...and it certainly didn't feel like beatings and sex and punishment, over and over and over again. No, it felt like being cared about; knowing that he wasn't just an object to be played with, knowing that his team, his family, had had as many sleepless nights as he had, and that they had just willingly given up another four to help set him free. And now that he realized that _that_ was what love was, what it had always been...he knew that just because the violence had toned down a bit after he had completely submitted, just because He had acted a bit nicer whenever Reid was exceptionally good, just because He most always tended to the injuries _He created_...that didn't mean He had ever, ever loved him. And no matter how much Reid may or may not have had "feelings" for_ Him_ after a while—love...had he loved Him?—it didn't matter anymore. He was here, with his family, now, and he was okay. He was not with The Man anymore; he would never be with that awful, tyrant again, as long as his family had a say in it.

And the fact that this made Reid feel a strange way deep down inside, like maybe he was upset about that, even just in the slightest...it was something that he knew he would remain ashamed of for the rest of his existence.

_**xxx**_

Several cities away, at a bar in Highland Park, the football game everyone was watching went to another annoyingly long commercial break.

"Tonight at eleven," said a women reporter, the camera shaky, "more on the seven abducted children found, along with who we are now hearing may be a former federal agent..." It cut to an even more unstable video of the the scene from earlier that week, although it was dark, and all that could really be made out was the flashing, colored lights of the police cars and ambulances. "...and what is being done to find the rest of the missing,_ and_ the person responsible."

"Damn," one of the guys at the bar said, downing another shot and looking to the man beside him. "Real crazy, huh?"

"Yeah. I just hope they catch the guy, you know? My friend's little boy was one of them."

"Oh, shit, man. I'm sorry."

"They found 'em, it's okay. Thank god. But the others? And like...who the fuck can just take someone's kid? I'd kill the bastard myself if I got the chance."

The first snorted. "You kiddin' me? You couldn't take on a toddler."

"I could with this guy. Only a weak, pathetic piece of shit would do something like that."

"Uh-huh."

If they'd bothered to turn around, they would've seen that they were being watched by someone a few tables over, in the back of the crowded place. This man leaned back once they'd gone back to a different subject, using a finger against the rim of his empty glass to twirl it around on the table. He licked his lips and then shoved a hand in his pocket as his cell phone vibrated. He looked at the caller ID and chuckled a bit, placing it on the table and allowing it to go to voice-mail. Then, he looked back up as another quick news commercial flashed on the screen before the game began again. He made eye-contact as the second man from the conversation he'd been listening to peered behind him and ended up looking directly at him. He nodded, glanced away, and then when he realized he was still being stared at, he turned back around and, awkwardly, took another drink.

The phone on the table lit up again with another call, and the owner ignored it. He'd answer it later...right now, something had come up, and he needed to take care of it.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Thank you all! I'm so insanely excited about where this story is going, I've never planned out an entire ending in advance before! Hope you enjoy this chapter!**

**Reviews, as always, are supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-ly appreciated and indubitably loved ;D**

**WARNINGS: Past abuse/(implied) non-con.  
><strong>

_**xxx**_

_"Betrayal is the only truth that sticks."_

― Arthur Miller

**9.**

**THEN****  
><strong>(9 Months)<strong>**

_"If I stop, are you going to say what I want to hear?"_

_Reid mumbled into the tie bound around his mouth, the pillow his face was against as he lay on his stomach, which was practically smothering him, soaked in tears and sweat. He could feel the blood on his back, sticky and hot, from where the metal buckle of the belt had ripped into his skin what felt like a hundred times...and what could have been more. He didn't know. Everything was a blur, but of course...that was his fault. He had tried to leave again. He was never allowed to do that, never even allowed to think about it. And what a pathetic try it had been; he'd made it out the door, but that was about it. At least last time he had made it into the woods. Then, he'd been knocked down and dragged, uselessly kicking and screaming, back into the house, back into the room he would have rather died than ever see again. He hadn't been thinking clearly...oh god, he was so sorry...but then, he was always sorry when pain was being inflicted upon him._

_The gag was removed, and he turned his head to gasp for air. He would have fought against the ropes tying his wrists to the headboard, but he hardly had enough energy to remain conscious. And he had to do that. Bad things happened when he wasn't awake enough to stop them; bad things happened no matter what. He liked to believe he had a chance, though._

_"Speak."_

_"I'm so sorry..." Reid panted, his eyelids fluttering. "I'm so sorry, sir. Please. No more."_

_The Man, who had been standing, now moved smoothly over to lie next to him, placing His hands on the open wounds He'd just caused, and Reid sobbed while He smirked. "And you won't try to leave me again, will you?"_

_"No, sir. No. No. No, I won't."_

_"Because...?"_

_"Y-you're―" Reid's voice broke, and so he took a breath and then started again. He would regret this later, but...he just couldn't fight anymore, not right now. Maybe when he had his strength back again...maybe... "Because you're my master. And I'm yours. I'm yours..."_

_"Good boy." The Man started petting the younger's hair, which was comforting in a way because that meant He was done, at least with the belt. And Reid forced himself to lean into the touch, because He liked when Reid acted like that; helpless, weak...destroyed. But he wasn't. Not yet. He was just...tired. He was always tired nowadays. He'd been tired constantly for the past months...or at least, he hoped it had only been months; every day only felt longer than the last. __His eyes closed, and he felt The Man shift over him though pretended like he didn't; he always acted like it wasn't happening, that it never did, even when it was. He was strong. He would not break...unless, this right here was him breaking, and instead of what he feared would happen, which was that he would become too afraid to fight, he would simply stop _caring _enough to fight._

_He truly didn't know which was more terrifying._

**NOW**

While Garcia was out getting something for them to eat, Reid was more lost than he should have been for being in a small hotel room. He had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do…and that really frightened him. If The Man had ever left him completely alone, He had made sure Spencer had either had enough things to do that he didn't have time to take a deep breath let alone think, or that he was restrained enough he didn't have a chance of doing anything else. That was only when He was angry, however...well, more angry than usual. Occasionally He had just put him in the basement, but after a while (especially after He had decided Reid needed to stop conversing with the children), He would leave Reid in His room, handcuffed either to the wooden chair in the corner, the headboard of the bed, or, if He was _very_ angry with him, He would bind him to the radiator and turn it on, so that if he tried to do anything but stand uncomfortably rigid, he would be burned.

The only reason that wasn't as awful as The Man desired it to be was because it was the only time Reid was able to see out the window, through a crack in the blinds. He had never dared to fully open them, but the crack was large enough that he could see the trees outside, and the sky, and the sun, and everything he missed. It thankfully distracted him (mostly) from the misery he'd be in by the time The Man returned, and it was something he could think about when, well...when he needed a distraction. The Man had had a job, because he was only ever gone from very early in the mornings to sometime in the afternoon, and only a few days out of the week; Reid had never be exact with the schedule, as he was never allowed to know the date or time. And, undoubtedly, the job was something stressful, because He almost always angrier when He came back, giving Him the energy He needed for His regime of violence.

So now, as Reid sat on the bed, his limbs as free as ever, he didn't know what to do. He'd forgotten what the option of choosing was like…and maybe he didn't like or want it. At least with The Man, he had known exactly what pissed Him off, exactly what was expected of him before He got home, exactly what he should do and exactly what he shouldn't. The Man had spent over two years training him to be what He wanted, and He had done a damn good job at it. Reid wasn't supposed to think for himself—he was supposed to shut up and obey. No one had even struck him since he'd gotten away, not even once, not even the detective from before, and it was strange; granted, it was a_welcome_ strange, but strange all the same. He did remember life before, but…it didn't seem real. He still felt as if, at any moment, he would wake up and be back in The Man's bed, or in the basement, or anywhere else but here.

After a long while of thinking he stood and went over to the window, tucked the curtain back an inch or two, and took a deep breath as the light from the setting sun fell warm against his face. He immediately felt better, closing his eyes and enjoying what he hadn't felt in what seemed like forever. He had never been allowed outside except to do what he would have nightmares about for the rest of his life, and of course that had always been in the middle of the night, so no one could see (or hear) what was being done. The Man had tried his hardest, and succeeded, in making sure Spencer was as cut off from the outside world as possible.

His eyes went to the luggage at his feet. JJ had stayed in this room; Reid recognized her bag. What had Garcia said she had brought? A journal? Letters to him?

Curious, absentmindedly looking around to assure he wouldn't be caught touching things that weren't his (bad, bad, _bad_), Reid sat down and unzipped her bag, just a bit, enough he could peer inside, thinking it absolutely insane that he was allowing himself to do this. However, the first thing he saw was a red binder, and when he pulled it out, gently, he saw that there was a note tucked into the front sleeve that said _Dear Reid. _So...technically it was his, right? And if it belonged to him, he was allowed to look at it.

He opened it, leaned up against the side of the bed, stretched out his legs in front of him, placed the binder on his lap, and then began to read.

**_xxx_**

The dial tone rang three times before the desired person _finally_, after at least twenty failed attempts, picked up, cut off before they could even say 'hello'. "You son of a bitch. I'm gonna kill you."

"No, you're not," the voice replied, very low. "But you already know that."

"Did you kill the guy at the bar?"

"Hmm?"

"The one the police are all over in Highland Park? His friend described a guy in a dark red Camry that sounded _remarkably _like you!"

"Hmm. I don't actually recall last night too well, sorry."

"You promised you wouldn't—that you wouldn't—it was never supposed to go this far!"

"You should know as well as anyone that sometimes shit happens."

"You're crazy!"

"Am I? Or are you? I don't hear sirens, so..."

"Yeah...But—but _this..."_

"Are you done? Because—"

"No! I'm done!"

"Don't you dare try to fuck me over again."

"Listen, what happened—"

"I never did want to hear your bullshit. Why do you think I never answer your calls?"

"Stop this! These kids, that man...they were innocent. They didn't deserve it!"

"Did you deserve it? Did _I_ deserve it? Clearly you thought so, but—"

"That's not fair—"

"No! What's not fair is what you did to me. What you let _him _do to me."

"You've gone over the fuckin' edge!"

"And you only have yourself to blame for that. You hang up, and I swear, you'll go to jail faster than you can say anything about me. And I swear, that man can either be the last or the first. Take your pick."

With a long sigh, Detective Brown leaned back in his chair, defeated. "Alright. What do you want?"

"I'm ready now, _brother..._and I need you to make that delivery for me."


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Thank you all! And, ah...sorry...? *nervous chuckle***

**Reviews, as always, are so lovely and appreciated! Even if it's just a few words, I love hearing from you all! :)**

_**xxx**_

_"We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves." _

― Malcolm X

**10.**

**THEN  
><strong>**(1 Year)**

_"Spencer...?" William began, cautiously walking up to where the older was in the kitchen, slowly, inattentively wiped the cloth in his hand over the same spot on the counter for the umpteenth time in the very few minutes the child had been watching. Reid didn't respond, didn't even look like he had heard the boy, and so William reached out and touched his shoulder. "Spencer?"_

_Reid whimpered and pulled away, shaking his head._

_"Why don't you talk to us anymore?" the younger questioned tearfully. "Why don't you even look at us anymore?"_

_"Trouble." Spencer murmured in response, again shaking his head, grabbing the washcloth and moving onto another part of the room._

_William only followed, and to Reid's dismay, so did the other three children, all of whom were supposed to be waiting at the dinner table. "But He's not home...and she's outside. It's okay right now!"_

_"No." Reid looked at him. "No."_

_"Please...don't do this. Not after...not after Lauren. Please. We need you!"_

_"Can't."_

_"Spencer—"_

_"I can't!" Reid turned to them, and for the moment that their gazes met, all any of them saw was pain and fear that mimicked their own. Then, surprisingly, William's eyes averted and he said, "Sorry," as if he had a reason to be. Reid held out his hand for the other to take, and then, when William did so, he pulled the boy into a tight embrace—the first either had had in what might have been months. He looked up at the other children and nodded, and then they wrapped their arms around him too._

_"You're shaking." William mumbled against Spencer's shirt, and then he was crying, and Reid buried his face in the other's hair and said, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."_

_The sliding glass door to the backyard opened, and Reid quickly gave them another squeeze before releasing the four and ushering them back into the other room. He was just returning when Marian stepped into the kitchen, and she frowned knowingly. "Are you supposed to talk to them?"_

_"No ma'am." Spencer said, hoarsely, and he flinched when she slapped his mouth. "Then don't. You know better."_

_"Yes ma'am."_

_"Good. I'll finish up in here before dinner, you go upstairs. He'll be home soon...you know how he likes his laundry folded."_

_"Yes ma'am." Reid backed his way out of the kitchen, passing through the dining room and brushing his hand against all four of the children's backs as he went, only wishing he could do more to comfort them._

_He was halfway up the stairs when he heard a car door slam, and he sprinted the rest of the way up, closing himself inside His room, grabbing the basket of clothes Marian had brought up earlier, and hurriedly (albeit neatly) folding them and putting them in their proper drawers. Then, he sat down on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath, trying to compose himself and hold back the tears that were behind his eyes._It's okay_, he told himself. _It's okay. You were good. It's okay. You're okay.

_He placed his hands over his face after a moment and let out a long sob because no, no it _wasn't_ okay, and neither was he...and there was nothing he could do about it. _

_Not anymore._

**NOW**

Spencer had only made it a page into the binder before he had started to cry, adding to the tear stains that were on the papers as he continued. The heartbreak, the grief, every emotion that had been poured into the words written...they made him unbearably sad, but also, in a sick sort of way, happy. He had been missed so desperately that it had been hard for them to keep on going with their daily lives. They had cried themselves to sleep as many times as he had, from the sound of it, and it made him feel so much less like he had before, like he had been alone, like The Man had convinced him to feel. If only he had known before, maybe...maybe...

No. Nothing could have changed what happened. He hadn't been as strong as he had once believed, and that was that. Still, it would have been comforting...but now, now was when he probably needed to realize, to acknowledge, to _believe_ it the most. Maybe JJ would hug him when she came back...and maybe Garcia, too...and Emily...and maybe sometime he would allow one of the others to hug him. He desperately wanted a hug...a touch that wouldn't hurt him, that wouldn't be forced upon him, that he could stop at any point by his own will...a comfort, something he hadn't had in years from anyone but the children. He wanted his mother, he realized at that point; wanted her more than anything. He couldn't even imagine how much pain she had gone through in the last two years, and he hoped no one had told her about how much _he _had been through. He didn't want her to know what her son had done, what had been done to him. He didn't know if he would ever get rid of the feeling and belief that he was irreversibly dirtied, and he sure as hell didn't want to bring that burden onto his mom, who had without a doubt gone through enough already.

He read a few more pages and then jumped as the phone rang, the binder crashing to the floor as he stood and backed against the wall, panicked. By the second ring, however, he had regained his senses and started to breathe again and hung his head in relief as he realized it had not been someone shouting at him; loud noises startled him for that very reason, he supposed. It had always been so quiet at the house...until He got mad at him.

Reid looked over at where the phone lay on the dresser between the beds, biting his lip and wondering if it was something he should answer. But he wasn't _allowed_ to do that...if it had been his team, they would have known that...right?

The ringing stopped before he had to make a decision, something he was grateful for, and he went back to reading until he heard a car door shut. He peered out the window again to see a black car had pulled up, and he instinctively went to the door and opened it, but was surprised to see that, instead of Garcia or any of the others, Detective Brown got out of the car. Reid nearly shut the door again, but Brown had his hand out in a gesture to wait and said, "Stop."

Reid froze, accustomed to respond to the very tone Brown had taken on, the one that demanded to be obeyed or _else._

Brown looked extremely nervous, his collar up and his hat lowered, hiding his face, and he cleared his throat once he knew he had caught Reid's attention. "You need to come down to the precinct again. There's new evidence. Your team is already down there. Didn't you get a call?"

If Reid hadn't still been a professional at catching lies, he actually might have believed the man. But he must have found the skill buried away somewhere in his head because he just _knew, _getting terrible anxiety from the very idea of going along with this man. He shook his head and quietly said, "Stay," because that's exactly what he needed to do, and Brown's eyes darted side to side for a moment before he said, "_Now_, boy!"

Reid flinched and put his head down, still gripping the door, his thoughts going in every direction, fighting for control of the situation...or rather, fighting to decide who already had it, him or the detective. _Obey. Shut up. Obey. Shut up. __No. No. Don't. Scream. Run. Don't go. No, s__hut up. Obey. Shut up._

"Did you hear me?" Brown hissed, taking a step forward, and Reid mirrored it in the opposite direction, looking over the detective's shoulder in hopes of seeing one of his team pull up to get him out of this situation. Unless...unless they really were down at the precinct...but they couldn't be, right?

"Don't make me hurt you," the man blurted out, angrily. "Is that what you want? Huh? Is it? You want me to hurt you?"

Reid shook his head and trembled, beginning to breathe heavily as he struggled to keep himself calm. "N-no. No sir. Please no."

"Then come with me."

"No..." Reid shook his head, tearful, and the detective reached down to his gun holster, fingering the weapon secured there, before it was suddenly in his hand, pointed at Reid's chest.

"Get in the _fucking_ car." Brown growled, and Reid found himself moving without remembering when exactly he had decided to do so, slowly climbing into the back as the detective opened the door for him. Then, assuring he kept his head low, Brown got into the driver's seat and started the car, hurriedly backing up and exiting onto the main road, driving for a little while, and then at last pulling over onto the grass.

He sat there for a minute, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, staring at Reid in the mirror, and then he got out, opening the back door on the opposite side of the road. He then leaned inside, grabbed Reid's arms, and, despite the agent's sudden—but expected—struggles, managed to handcuff them in front of him. Reid stared up at the man in terror and shrank back against the other door, shaking his head, and Brown sighed heavily. "Don't make me hurt you," he said again, but this time it wasn't so much of a threat; instead, it sounded more like he was pleading with Reid.

Then, he took out what looked like the drug the hospital and the detective had given Reid before and a syringe, his expression unreadable. Reid shrieked, grabbed out at the handle behind him, and shoved the door open, falling out on his back. The landing knocked the air out of him, and he lay gasping for a moment before he heard Brown shout at him and rolled under the car.

"C'mere, you son of a bitch!" Brown got down on the dirt and reached underneath the car for him, hearing a vehicle drive past and cursing the world. Thankfully, however, whoever it was did not stop, and then Brown actually got a hold of Spencer's ankle when the younger man kicked out at his hand. "Well trained my ass!" he said, loudly, and Reid stilled for a moment, long enough that the man could pull him out and then grab his hair, dragging him up by it and manhandling him back into the car, shoving him down onto the floor of it and putting a knee on his chest to keep him there.

"No." Reid whimpered suddenly, and tears started to well up in his eyes. "No. Please. Can't go back."

Brown stared down at the kid for a minute, feeling the other's panicked, heaving breaths under his knee.

"Please. Please. Anything. Anything else. Please, sir. Please."

The detective really hesitated, thoughtful, and then he reached out and grabbed the drug he had been meaning to give the kid anyway.

"No!" Spencer began writhing, and Brown took a handful of his hair again and roughly yanked on it. "Stop it!" he ordered, in the same voice that had made Reid go rigid before...the one his brother had told him to use if the younger started to get out of line. "Stop fighting! You hear me, boy? _Stop!_"

Reid complied surprisingly quickly, going limp and merely crying quietly while Brown rolled Reid's sleeve up, uncapped the needle, shoved it into the bottle, pulled back the plunger far more than he had last time, and then injected it into the bend of Reid's arm. This time Reid felt the effects almost instantly, and by the time Brown got him laying flat on the back seat, the extent of his struggles had dulled to smacking at Brown's arm, so lightly the man hardly felt it, and mumbling incoherently.

Brown waited until the other's eyes had closed and he was undoubtedly asleep before he stepped back out, groaned quietly because _he was so fucked, _and then closed the door.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Thank you guys, you're fantastical! :)**

**P.S. To all my anonymous reviewers I can't reply personally to, THANK YOU TOO!**

**P.S.S. The next chapter will most likely be delayed one week due to midterm exams, so see you in two weeks! **

_**xxx**_

_"We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us."_

― Ken Levine

**11.**

Somehow, even after hours of searching through every inch of the house, there had been no DNA evidence that anyone other than Mariana (whose body had been simply in her room this entire time; a lovely surprise) and the victims had been living in the house, _ever. _It did however give them a more accurate profile—the unsub was either extraordinarily educated in the forensic area, or someone who was had been helping him. In fact, it was almost _too _clean, as if someone had swept over every inch and reassured nothing would be found and that every little thing was in the exact place it should be. And that, considering the size of the house, would have taken severe commitment, if not a daily routine.

That wasn't to say that the place was kept perfect by any means; at least, not the basement, which had practically been the set of a horror film with the chains, dirty mattresses, and red stains on the floor spread about. And in the master bedroom, similar red splotches littered the carpet; faded enough that it was obvious they had been scrubbed as much as possible, but, well, blood wasn't that easy to clean up, especially not in the large quantities that it had clearly been in, and...well, there was no doubt this was the room Spencer's nightmares came from.

Upon seeing this, JJ had stepped out, opting instead to go through Mariana's room. When Prentiss came in to check on her, she cut off anything the other agent was going to say with, "They slept separately. If they were together, it was never on good terms."

"Reid did say the unsub abused her. Maybe it was less because they fought and more because they never got along to begin with."

"And she stayed because she loved him, whether or not he ever loved her."

"You know," Emily said after a moment, uncertain, "Spence could have been...a..."

"A substitute?" JJ sighed, rubbing the back of her neck and trying to remember that she wasn't the only one uncomfortable with the subject. "I don't think we can rule that out."

"It's very likely, actually," Rossi peered his head in at them. "It's likely that the unsub kept him in the room with him."

"So, if the unsub is homosexual," Emily said, "then Spencer might have been the only thing holding this relationship together."

"What relationship?" JJ asked, turning to her and wrinkling her nose. "She kidnapped someone for him to fuck so she could keep getting beat up!"

"JJ!" Emily frowned at her, and she bit the nail of her thumb and uttered an apology.

"We don't know that the unsub abused her all the time," Rossi answered. "Reid wouldn't have seen them at every moment. He could have promised to change once she did that for him..."

"Okay, so she took him so he'd take his anger out on him instead. Great. I can't fuckin' believe—" JJ cut herself off and exhaled sharply. In all reality, she probably should have been able to believe it. They'd had cases like this and worse, much worse...but god, her poor genius..._their_ poor genius. It wasn't fair that it had to have been him...of course, it hadn't been fair that it had to have been anyone at all.

"Why don't you go outside and check on Garcia and Reid?" Rossi recommended softly, and JJ straightened herself up, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. "I'm okay. I can handle it."

"I wasn't suggesting you couldn't."

"I know!" JJ snapped, and then took a step back and turned her back to them. "Sorry. I know. Yeah, I'll...go call her. Come get me if you find anything else, though." a

With that, the blonde agent took her cell out and headed down the stairs and onto the back patio. The very moment she was dialing Garcia's number, however, Garcia was dialing _hers, _and so all either of them got was a busy signal, which was, to say the least, frustrating. JJ frowned, decided she would wait a minute or two, and then she heard Hotch shout her name in a sort of panicked tone that he hardly ever had. She rushed back inside to find Morgan on the phone halfway down the stairs, the others surrounding him, and he was yelling, "What the hell does that mean? _What?_"

"What's going on?" JJ felt an awful chill in the pit of her stomach, and she somehow knew before Morgan even looked at her and solemnly choked out, "Reid's gone."

"You...you mean someone...?"

"Yeah. That's exactly what I mean."

"No," she said. "No. No, that's impossible. That's impossible!"

Morgan put the top of the phone to his forehead and closed his eyes; Garcia could be heard breathing heavily on the line. "She left him alone for twenty minutes to get food. They got him on camera but...the bastard hid his face. He was driving a van. No license plate. He had a gun."

"He didn't—did he—?"

"No!" Garcia exclaimed, her voice choked with tears, and Morgan put her on speaker. "It was only on him for a second."

"He's learned to go along with what he's told to do, anyway, remember?" Emily pointed out. "That means it had to have been our unsub, right?"

"Not necessarily." Hotch said, quietly, and his eyes were dark. "We know one other person he responded submissively to...even without a weapon."

"Besides everyone?" Morgan retorted, and then JJ gasped. "No way. He wouldn't."

"Who?" Morgan's eyes went from Hotch to JJ and back again, and then it clicked. "Oh—oh _fuck—_I'll kill him!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Rossi exclaimed, catching Morgan's arm as he tried to pass him.

"Let go!"

"We don't have any proof! He could have nothing to do with this."

"Really? After all that shit he pulled at the precinct, you believe he's innocent?"

Rossi grimaced and held out a hand. "Just, wait a minute. Garcia?" he said after a moment, "What vehicle does Detective Brown drive?"

"Ah...um..." she sighed. "Not a van."

"Shit!" Morgan struck the wall with his fist, knocking several picture frames off.

"Oh, no. Oh, god. Sir?" Garcia began, shakily. "Detective Brown never showed up for work today."

_**xxx**_

For having done the absolute unthinkable only minutes before, Brown was surprisingly calm. Shaky, yes, just a bit—and he kept looking in the rear-view mirror to assure he wasn't being followed—but that paranoia he supposed was to be expected. He had just re-kidnapped a federal agent…this was the end of his life as he had known it. He had spent the entire day rethinking it all, deciding whether or not he should go through with it all.

But he owed his life to his brother anyway, and had been paying off that debt for the past ten years. Really, it was his fault, and he was doing this for a good reason…it was just one annoying kid, and this way, no one else would have to be hurt, especially not Brown himself. That was a good reason…that was a good reason…that _had _to be a good reason...right?

The younger man whined in the back seat, making Brown jump, but thankfully, when he glanced back, he saw Reid was still unconscious, though he was covered in a thin layer of sweat and his brow was furrowed. _Shit,_ Brown thought; he hadn't thought of possible side effects...he didn't even _know_ them, if he was being honest. He'd only been supposed to give him around half the dose he had just administered, but...he'd just wanted to make the other sleep, or at least tired enough he couldn't cause any trouble. That was it. He couldn't risk this all going to shit...not after everything. And no matter how behaved his brother had attempted to convince him Reid was, he hadn't been about to take the chance.

Or maybe he just didn't want to see Reid's face, or his expressions, or hear any desperate pleas for the other to reconsider. Maybe he didn't want to question his own actions, ones he knew were wrong but was willfully deciding to ignore. It wasn't his job to ask questions anymore. This was a simple trade; the agent for his own freedom. He could do this. _Right?_

It was twenty minutes that felt like an eternity before his cell began to ring, and he took out the battery without bothering to look at the ID. It was probably the precinct…or the FBI team…but who cared? He was done with all that. He didn't have a choice in the matter; really, though, had he _ever?_

In the empty back-lot of a relatively ignored corner store, the car he was supposed to stop before sat idling, and he very slowly pulled up beside it thirty minutes later than the time that had been agreed on. Then, after a moment of calming his nerves, he got out, took the lanky agent in his arms, and then made his way over to the vehicle. With a bit of difficulty, he managed to get his hand free enough to open the passenger door.

"No. In the back."

Brown cleared his throat and then got the other door open, laying the younger man across the backseat. Reid groaned but did not wake, and so Brown shut him in and went over to the driver's side window. "So…we're good, right?"

"Mm."

"Did...did you get the stuff? The...the passport?"

"No, actually. I changed my mind."

"What? No, no, you said—"

"Get in."

"What?" And Brown didn't get the chance to hear a response as the door slammed out against him, knocking him to the ground in a daze. Before he could get up, something cracked into the back of his head, and he hit the pavement for good this time.

The driver calmly placed his gun back into the glove compartment, got out, picked his brother up under his arms, and dragged him into the passenger seat. Once all three were in the car, he leisurely glanced around (though knew he had no reason to worry) and then started the car.

By this point, Reid was just conscious enough to feel the vehicle jerk into motion, to hear several horns honking as the driver presumably cut them off. It took a second for him to remember what had happened through the fog clouding his thoughts, and even that small action seemed to exhaust him again. That fucking detective...his team would never let him get away this...his friends would keep him safe...his family wouldn't let him be hurt again. They'd cut him off, never let him get to where he was going, never let him take Reid back to Him...

And then—

"Oh, pet...I've missed you."

His breath catching in his throat, Reid managed to glance up to find the same face that haunted his every move smiling back at him. He immediately, weakly, flung out his hand towards the direction of the door, hoping he was close enough to reach it, refusing to acknowledge the fact that he wouldn't have been able to go anywhere even if he succeeded in opening it.

"No, no. Stop that."

The awful, infuriating instinct to comply with the voice made him go limp again, and then he opened his mouth to cry out in anger, failing to do so and instead emitting a pitiful groan. This was a dream...a nightmare...this couldn't be real...

The Man chuckled, very quietly, and Reid might have gotten sick if he hadn't been so tired he could no longer keep his eyes open. _So_ tired...so unbearably..._overwhelmingly_ tired...

"Sleep now, pet. I'll still be here when you wake up."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Happy Holiday Season! For whatever you celebrate, I hope it's amazing! :) This _isn't_ a very good present, I guess…eugh…But I swear…it's gonna turn around for the better soon. Like, pretty soon. Eventually. I've been complimented several times on my apparently brilliant pacing, so…**

**WARNINGS:**** Abuse, implied (past) non-con (where it's like… vaguely "consensual" but…_not_? Like…?! ?! ?! What would that even be classified as?!)**

**Reviews are super pleasing, thank you to everyone who's done so along with favoriting/following so far!**

_**xxx**_

_"Why am I letting you comfort me?" __He stared over her head. __"Because I've made sure you have no one else to turn to."_

— Kresley Cole (Lothaire)

**12.**

Brown came to sometime later, utterly disoriented, with a blindingly painful headache he could hardly think straight through. He opened his eyes, slowly, and found himself looking directly into his brother's face, which startled him enough he gasped.

"Good! You're awake. Sorry about that."

"Ohh…I think I've got a concussion…" the detective groaned, trying to reach up and finding he couldn't, his wrists zip-tied behind him. He finally looked around, blinking hard, realizing he was sitting in a chair in the living room of a place he did not recognize. "Where the hell…?"

"A friend of work's place."

"Okay…why am I tied up?"

"Oh," the other man said softly, like maybe he hadn't noticed, and then shrugged and turned around, pacing over to the other side of the room and then looking back.

"Wyatt…?"

"Shut up," he said, and Brown bit his tongue.

There was a moan from behind Brown, and he strained his head around to see the FBI agent lying on the floor, holding his head with both hands, grimacing. Brown looked back at his brother, and before he could ask why the hell the kid wasn't restrained while he was, Wyatt smiled. "I told you. He'll do whatever I say. You, on the other hand…"

"I always do what you want!"

"Would you have come with me?"

Brown hesitated, and his brother clicked his tongue. "See? And anyway, I'm doing you a favor, Garrett. Your career is over…you know that, right?"

"It was already over," Brown replied. "I haven't solved a solo case in years."

"Well I'm making sure my brother doesn't go to jail. I mean, I did tell you I would do that, didn't I?"

"Y-yeah. I mean, yeah."

Wyatt's smile returned, and then his attention went to Reid. The agent was sitting up now, watching them both in fear. _  
><em>

"Come here, pet."

Reid let out a loud sob but obeyed, getting to his feet and going over to stand in front of Wyatt, his head down.

"See?" Wyatt gestured at him while looking at his brother, and then he grabbed Reid's jacket and pulled him into a possessive kiss. Reid quietly whined because he knew this was The Man claiming His ownership over him yet again, and it was somehow more painful than any punishment he'd ever been forced to endure. "Good boy," Wyatt pet the younger man's hair when he was done, glancing at his brother for a reaction.

Brown had no expression, holding whatever he felt, if anything at all, inside, and simply nodded emotionlessly. Reid wondered then if, as much as Brown acted like he was independent and tough and dominant, he was just as much a slave to The Man as Reid was. He wondered how long the now ex-detective had been bowing to every whim his brother had—his whole life? He'd kidnapped Reid for Him, for God's sake…he was far more emotionally invested in The Man than Reid would ever allow himself to be. Going as far as put an innocent person back into the hands of this monster? Something awful must have happened to him to be as fucked up as that.

Wyatt lowered his hand to the agent's lower back, which the younger flinched at, and then began to lead him past Brown.

"Wait—let me go?" Brown asked, almost pleaded, and Reid could've laughed. Brown looked and sounded pathetic…afraid, almost, but not quite. Which was a shame, because he deserved to be afraid, to be in pain, to fucking suffer for what he'd just done to Reid. He wished he'd hit the man harder back at the precinct—wish he'd fucking _killed _him.

"When I can watch you again…when I'm sure you've come around. Don't you dare try to get up." Wyatt said, and Reid glared daggers at the bastard while he walked by.

Brown immediately looked away, and Reid thought he had caught a glimpse of a guilty expression on the other's face.

_Too late now. _

"Oh, pet," Wyatt breathed into Reid's ear, moving his hands to the younger's shoulders as he led him down the hall to what Reid already was aware was a bedroom. He was too used to it again already, and although tears burned behind his eyes he did not allow them to fall.

"It's been a long week, hasn't it?" The Man asked, locking the door behind them, and Reid fearfully took a few steps back, his hands behind his back in an attempt to show he had no intention of fighting, of doing anything at all. God, He was going to be so mad, He already _was_ mad, and He would beat him senseless again…

"I needed some time to clear my head, of course, after Marian…and was surprised to find you and the children gone when I came back. Was it you who decided to break my rules? Hm, pet? Was it?"

"I'm so sorry, Master," Reid whimpered, hanging his head in shame. "I'm so sorry."

"Is sorry good enough, pet? After all this mess you've gotten us into, gotten me into?"

"No, sir. No."

Wyatt gestured for the other to come closer, reaching down to take out his belt, double it, and hold it up. Reid's legs gave out at the very sight, sending him to his knees. He clasped his hands in front of him and shook his head. "Please, Master, please no. Please. I'm sorry."

"Don't make me more angry, pet; it won't be pretty. Now be a good boy and take off your shirt."

**THEN**  
><strong>(1 Year 5 Months)<strong>

_Reid probably would have enjoyed being let outside after so long if it hadn't been forty degrees, raining, and pitch black. The house did not have a back porch light, nor any sort of awning, and he was handcuffed to the railing of the stairs that led from the deck to the ground. Trapped, to be blunt; as if he was ever anything else. Except normally he was trapped _inside_, where it was warm and…well, dry. And out here, he was freezing and shivering and afraid because he had no idea when his Master was going to let him back in—if He was going to at all; it had been hours since anyone had come out. He'd fucked up, and he knew that…worse than he had in months. He had tried to stop The Man from hitting Marian—got in the way, really—and then shoved The Man's hands away. But she had actually been nice to Reid all day, and had even allowed him to eat without telling Him (after he hadn't in at least a day and a half), something Reid thought deserved a favor in return. And then, as if that hadn't been bad enough, he'd said, "Stop!" as if he were allowed to give orders, as if he was anything but a worthless whore, and it had frozen both Him and Marian…before she, probably to save herself, slapped Reid hard enough he fell and shouted, "Don't you ever touch him again! Ever!"_

_"I—I'm sorry!" he had tried, but it had done no good at all while Marian kicked him several times while The Man looked on, probably impressed, possibly merciful, at least to her. And then He had had His belt around Spencer's neck before he could even recover, only this time it wasn't to choke him (something He seemed to take pleasure in at times), it was to leash him. "What haven't I tried with you, boy? You've been so good for so long…"_

_"M-Master—please! I'm sorry!"_

_"Is sorry good enough?"_

_"No, sir. No."_

_And then He had dragged Reid to his feet, forced him outside, knocked him to his knees, and used the handcuffs He so often did in His bedroom to attach him to the railings._

_"I'm sorry…Master, p-please."_

_"Maybe you'll appreciate everything I've done for you after a night out here. Maybe you'll think next time you want to disrespect me. You scream, I'll kill every last one of those shits downstairs. You hear me?"_

_"Yes, sir."_

_Then He had gone back inside, slamming the door, and after several hours Reid had never regretted anything more in his life. He was soaked through to the bone, and he was starting to have trouble staying awake. He was going to die out here, cold and all alone, all because he'd tried to protect someone who didn't even really deserve being protected. He would never have done that with Him—so why her? She could be just as vicious! Although… it wasn't constant…and she had never forced herself on him, which made her better in Reid's eyes. And he knew that The Man's violent outbursts were terribly painful…but he couldn't even save himself from those; why even try to for her? Why had he ever laid a finger on Him? He wasn't supposed to touch; he was only supposed to be touched. That was what he was here for, and that was what he had accepted. And he couldn't figure out for the life of him why he had thrown his record of obedience to shit. The Man might never trust him with anything ever again._

_Daylight was just beginning to fall over the tops of the trees when the door finally opened, but Spencer did not hear it. He was curled into himself on the steps, absolutely still, to the point where The Man wasn't quite sure he was even breathing until He touched the younger man's shoulder and he groaned._

_"Time's up, pet. Do you think you've learned your lesson?"_

_The raspy reply was a bunch of stammered nonsense that He ignored, unlocking the handcuffs and then cupping His pet's pale white face in His hands. "Hm? Are you sorry?"_

_Reid's eyes fluttered and his arm twitched. "I—I—m-m-s—" he managed before he cut off to cough and painfully wheeze in enough breath to choke out, "S-s-sor-r-ry."_

_The Man smiled and, surprisingly gently, picked the younger up in His arms. "Good. That's a good boy," He cooed, and Reid immediately huddled against His warmth, sniffling, tightly grabbing onto His jacket like it was his lifeline and burying his numb face into it. "S-s-sor-ry. Ma-Mast-ter. L-lo-love y-you. P-p…pl…pleas-se. D-d-don't-t l-leav-ve m-me."_

_"Okay, pet. Good. We'll get you warmed up…and then you can repay me for saving you, hm? For being so kind?"_

_Barely conscious, practically cuddling the person who only ever hurt him, Reid suddenly understood why he had acted so impulsively before—he had wanted the kindness Marian had only recently been showing him to continue. And maybe he had thought that saving her from a few blows was going to ensure that, or maybe he had been caught up in a moment from his past, where doing heroic shit like that was good, or maybe…maybe it had been instinctual, the same protectiveness he got when it came to the kids, who were, undoubtedly, kind to him. Maybe he had believed for a moment that something good could happen, that maybe eventually, she would be kind enough to free them, to stop The Man from beating another one of them, to do anything that someone _humane_ wouldn't hesitate to do._

_But he had been delusional; fantasizing again. He must have known somewhere in him, even then, that doing something like that, acting out so abruptly, would bring nothing but misery. She was not kind anymore than He was compassionate; they were _not_ humane. They were not human. They were monsters. And he had known that before…and he had foolishly allowed a sliver of hope, of his old self, of his old life to slip back into his head._

_He would never make that mistake again; not ever._

_"Y-yes-s-sir," he agreed finally, and then he wearily lifted his head and kissed his Master with his frozen lips, startling Him, and then he whimpered when He pulled His head away. He wanted love. He wanted love. He wanted to _be_ loved. He didn't want anymore pain, anymore nights in the basement, anymore nights outside, anymore beatings from misbehaving, anymore hatred and rage because of what he would stupidly do. He wanted love. He wanted to be loved. He wanted_ love!

_The Man smirked and chuckled, because it had been the first time that His pet had acted this affectionate, this adoring of Him of his own free will. Finally, He thought as He carried the cold and broken man—_His_ broken man—inside and up to His bedroom, and then got him out of his wet clothes and wrapped him in blankets because what good would he be if his teeth kept chattering together? He sat beside the younger and pet his hair until his face had regained color and he was relatively lucid. Or maybe not, because when The Man stopped petting him he turned his head, eyes half closed, and stammered, "M-Master?"_

_"Yes, pet?" The Man leaned back, in a mood that Reid rarely saw…that he wanted to see more of. He could make this work. He wanted to make this work. He didn't want to think anymore. He didn't want to remember, not ever again. He would be good. He would be more than good—he would be the submissive nothing that He wanted. He would do it. He would do it all. Whatever He wanted. _

_"I love you, Master," he said, and the lie spilled over his tongue as easy as the truth would have; maybe he couldn't tell the difference anymore. He crawled out of the blankets and sat next to The Man, and then repeated himself, and He stared at him for a long moment, like He was trying to decide what to do with this, and then..._

_"Show me how much, pet."_

_So Reid did._


End file.
